


Stuck on You

by carpemermaid



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Awkward Boners, Awkward Conversations, Bickering, Forced Proximity, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Getting Together, Hand Jobs, Handcuffed Together, Humor, Light Angst, Living Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, Masturbation, Minor Allura/Shiro (Voltron), Minor Injuries, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), POV Alternating, POV Keith (Voltron), POV Lance (Voltron), Resource Collecting Mission, Rivalry, Romance, Sharing a Bed, Shower Sex, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Teamwork, Touch-Starved, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wet Dream, physical bond, showering together, stuck together, working together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:39:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10057184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpemermaid/pseuds/carpemermaid
Summary: Go to Thalgor, Coran had said.It will be easy, he’d said. Well, it wasn’t easy being literally stuck to his rival thanks to getting exposed to some stupid alien plant in the middle of a humid jungle, after hiking all day with said rival. Lance and Keith just have to make it through two weeks of being around each other constantly, with their arms glued together, before they can go their separate ways. But first, they’ll need to make it through sharing a room and learning how to live on top of each other until they’re free.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. Keith and Lance are 19.

Lance and Keith were carefully making their way through the lush, jungle-like terrain of Thalgor on their search for the resources Coran had sent them to collect.

They’d bickered throughout the morning since being given the mission.

It was more of an errand, really, Lance thought as Keith’s bayard sword sliced through another plant ahead. Like when his mom used to send him out for milk at the corner store with his brother and sister. Now he was being sent out on space errands with Keith. Coran hadn’t even specified why he needed these crystal seedpods, just that it was urgent that they find some on Thalgor before they encountered the Galra again.

Keith had wanted to circle the planet for a better landing spot for their lions closer to where the resources were, while Lance was eager to land where it was easy so they could get in and out faster. They found an open field to land in at the edge of the sector where Coran had said they would find the jestroir crystal seedpods he needed. Then Keith had shot off towards the tree line without even bothering to wait for Lance to get out of Blue, making Lance rush into the grove of trees to follow him.

Thalgor was warm and muggy, and was filled with the sounds of crickets singing. Keith had said they probably weren’t crickets, but Lance thought they still sounded just as loud and buzzing in the back of his mind as they trudged through colorful alien plant life. Coran had lectured them on the thousands of different species of vegetation, but Lance had tuned out most of it.

The air felt thicker all around them the further into the jungle they went. He was starting to sweat uncomfortably from the humidity.

Lance was quickly losing his patience as Keith let another oversized alien leaf smack him in the face as he followed behind him. Keith was busy hacking away with his bayard sword to cut a path through the thick vines and brush.

“Dude,” Lance complained, bringing a hand up to block another blow from a bright orange plant that looked like a ceiling fan.

Keith turned to glare over his shoulder at Lance delaying them again. “ _What_?”

“Could you maybe not try to hit me with every singe plant?”

Keith smirked and swung his sword at a thicket of vines tangled across the path they were following. “Keep up, then. I thought you liked the outdoors.”

“I like the _beach_.” Lance rolled his eyes. He grunted when his foot got stuck in the little bogs that dotted the ground. The scent wafting out of them kind of reminded him of cinnamon, if it was spicier. “Oh, come on. This planet is so dumb.”

“This is why I told Shiro I would be better off completing this mission alone,” Keith groaned. “You’re slowing me down.”

He backtracked towards Lance and held out his arm.

“Yeah, but Keith,” Lance sing-songed before dropping his voice to a lower register, imitating Shiro with a stoic expression, “We’re part of a team, and that means no one has to do anything alone. We work together so that we can grow stronger as one. A team is only as strong as its weakest link.”

Keith snorted, shaking his head. Lance braced their arms together and held on tight as Keith helped to tug his foot free from the syrupy alien mud that was sucking his armor suit in. They both grunted as he popped free with a squelching _pop_.

“Ugh, gross,” Keith said.

“Says Mister Outdoorsy, survivalist extraordinaire,” he said, poking Keith. Lance pulled out the tablet Pidge had given them to check the scan map the ship’s computer had calculated for Thalgor. “Should be close. Look.”

He turned the tablet around and handed it to Keith. As they set off again, he noticed that Keith’s hair was beginning to frizz and stick out at odd angles. Lance snickered into his gloved hand and completely broke down when he turned to look at him.

“What is it this time?”

“Y-your hair. Looks like you and super alien humidity are not friends,” Lance said, still trying to control his laughter. He swooped in close to Keith and flipped up the visor. “Look! Your mullet bangs are all… _fluffy_. Oh my god, that’s adorable. It makes me want to pet you.”

“What? Shut the hell up!” Keith protested, shoving Lance away and slapping the visor back down. He spun on his heel and stalked away, cutting into the Thalgorian plant life with more vigor than was strictly necessary.

“Don’t waste all of your energy on attacking those plants, buddy. Save some of it for the resource gathering,” Lance teased as he trailed behind him. “I have it on good authority that these crystal thingies are of _great importance_.”

“Jestroir crystal,” Keith tossed over his shoulder before hopping over a downed branch. Lance leaned over to look closer at it; it was _furry_.

“Huh?”

“They’re called jestroir crystal seedpods, or were you not paying attention again?”

Lance frowned, stung by the jab, and pouted as he trekked silently behind Keith. The not-crickets trilled even louder as they rounded a bend that opened into a valley clearing between two hills. They both looked around in surprise at the sparkling purple river that curved through the valley and the beauty of the rays of light shining down in beams through the trees.

“Nice,” Keith said. Lance hummed in agreement as they walked into the clearing.

“This planet reminds me of Dr Seuss,” Lance said offhandedly as he bent down to examine a geometric rock formation. “With all of the colors and the weird trees, y’know? My mom liked to read me those books when I was little.”

“Uh, okay,” Keith said in a strange tone.

Lance glanced over at him and saw his eyes were bright with emotion before he blinked and looked away.

“Come on, it should be down near the riverbank. Coran said the crystals bloom close to the water,” Keith said.

They used a scanning device Pidge had coded for them. It worked like a metal detector, surveying the ground for the crystal seedpods they needed just below the surface. All along the riverbank there were flowers blooming like water lotuses, sprawling outwards with their petals vibrating each time they walked near one. The tips of the petals were shiny, almost glistening in the mid-afternoon light.

The scanner chirped, alerting them that they located the resource they needed. Keith and Lance kneeled down together, their hands brushing as they both brushed aside the petals of the flowers surrounding the spot they needed to dig in. Their gloved fingers were covered in the same oily substance that the petals had on them.

“You think this counts as space lube?” Lance asked with a wicked smirk, rubbing his fingers together. He wagged his eyebrows suggestively. “It has a nice slide to it.”

Keith shot him an irritated look as he swiped a hand across his sweaty forehead, brushing his bangs back from his eyes and smearing the oil above his furrowed brows.

“Kind of hard to think about lube when I’m gross and sweaty like this,” Keith hedged. “I feel like I just went five rounds with the training gladiators with how hot this damn planet is. I can’t really focus on anything else.”

Lance gasped, mocking surprise and held his hand over his armored chest plate. “Keith, _babe_ , that’s kind of the most appropriate time to think about lube.”

Lance shot him a flirtatious wink.

“Whatever,” Keith said as he began to dig through the soil to unearth the seedpods.

After a few minutes of digging he grunted and sat back on his knees to take off the upper half of his armor suit. Lance did the same, sighing in relief when he felt a brief breeze blow through the valley, cooling his damp skin for a moment. His shirt was clinging to his body, but he breathed easier without the weight of the full suit on.

“I wonder if we could gather this up, though. I’m not kidding about the lube thing. It’s not something you come by easily in space.”

“You managed to find your precious skincare products, though, didn’t you?”

Lance shrugged and started sliding his thumb and forefinger along the length of the petals to gather the shiny oil into a sample container. He could see Keith watching him out of the corner of his eye with a heavy gaze as he slowly worked each petal over, rubbing and squeezing to collect all of the oil he could to fill the tube. He smirked without looking at Keith and made salacious sound effects, faking a moan as he pulled more oil form another petal. When he looked back at Keith, he turned his eyes away quickly, looking down with laser focus at the task. He looked flushed, but Lance couldn’t tell if that was because he was embarrassed, or just from the heat. He snickered triumphantly as he turned back to the sample he had gathered.

As he was fumbling for the lid some of the oil sloshed and a droplet splashed onto his cheek. He swiped it away, absently noting how nice it felt on his skin, and tucked the tube away. _I hope it’s useful, I would kill for some alone time with that_ , he thought as a thrum of arousal twisted through him.

“Could you maybe help now, instead of gathering stuff we didn’t come here for?”

“You’ll be thanking me later if it turns out I’m right about it being safe to use as lube. We all have needs, dude,” Lance said smugly as he sank his fingers into the ground.

He quickly found it was difficult to dig with his gloves on, so he removed them and noticed that Keith had already done the same. They worked in silence as they unearthed the jestroir crystal seedpods and packed them away into another container lined with slots to fit the pods into. When they collected enough to fill three containers, they slumped back in sweaty heaps side by side with Keith on his back and Lance on his front, their wrists touching. Lance felt warm all over, his skin tingling faintly with a strange sensation.

Keith sat up after only resting for a moment.

“Let’s get back to the lions so we can get off this planet.”

His hair was even more mussed up than before, the uneven ends of his mullet wildly sticking out at all angles. Keith looked down at Lance, and for a moment he was struck with the urge to brush his crazy hair back and kiss him. Lance shook his head and sat up. _Stupid Thalgor humidity is getting to my brain._

When they went to stand they both realized something was wrong.

“What the—” Keith started to say, but his words cut off abruptly when they both looked down and saw that their skin had fused together where their wrists were touching.

“What?! How the hell did that happen?” Lance asked shrilly. He jerked his arm closer to his face to inspect it and was startled by Keith’s shocked cry when his arm was pulled with it. “What did this?”

“Ow! Shit, don’t do that!”

“Sorry,” Lance said distractedly, his wide eyes glued to the way their skin was rippling and knitting together. It was weird to watch the golden brown of his arm meshing with Keith’s pale complexion. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t look at me like that!” Keith snapped when Lance turned a narrowed gaze onto him. “This is probably your fault. I’d bet my bayard on it.”

“ _My fault_? Fuck you! How do we know it’s not your fault somehow? Why are you automatically blaming me?” Lance shot back, stung and a little infuriated that Keith would immediately jump to that conclusion.

“Because it’s always your fault!”

“Bullshit! That’s not true, you dick!” Lance shouted before swinging a punch at Keith that caught him in the side.

Keith twisted away from him, not getting far before their joined skin stopped him. He adjusted his fighting tactics, quickly adapting to being attached to Lance as he sparred with him in such close proximity.

They were both shoving each other and panting from the heat and fear they were trying to clamp down on. Their skin pulled painfully as they tried to separate their arms. Keith skillfully managed to lock Lance into a hold that kept him immobile, struggling against Keith’s grip.

“Okay, let’s… We can’t panic right now. We need to move,” Keith said, sounding like he was trying hard to keep his voice calm and controlled when his eyes were darting back and forth between their joined arms, Lance, and their surroundings. “Come on, we have to get back to the lions. Coran can fix this, whatever it is.”

“Right. Okay. Right,” Lance agreed as he caught his breath, repeating his words as a mantra to assure himself that Keith was right.

Keith eyed him for a moment before letting him out of his hold. They both looked down at their discarded suits and gathered them up.

The first steps they took were uncoordinated as their arms were becoming more and more glued together, fusing their wrists to the three inches of skin above them. They were bumping into each other and tripping over their own feet. Keith pulled them both to a stop with a rough jerk. He almost growled with frustration as he got in Lance’s face.

“Stop. We need to work together while we’re stuck like this,” he demanded. Lance nodded, swallowing down the urge to just run back towards Blue. “Give me your hand, it’ll be easier to work that way.”

Lance immediately twisted his arm slightly so that their fingers could twine together. The skin where they were joined pulled slightly, rippling with tension, but it helped to ground Lance. Keith’s grip on his fingers kept him focused as they carefully navigated back along the path they made earlier, skirting around the small patches of bogs so that they weren’t delayed any further.

“You know, this would probably be even easier if I put my arm around your shoulder,” Lance observed. Keith scoffed and kept silent as they made their way back.

He reached out with his mind to Blue to judge how far they had wandered from the lions and was relieved when he felt her presence in his mind nearby.

“Blue’s close, I can feel her,” Lance said, squeezing Keith’s hand reassuringly.

“Yeah, I can sense Red, too,” Keith said, quickening his pace.

Lance stumbled, but caught his balance before Keith needed to slow down to steady him.

“Watch out for that downed branch across the path,” Lance pointed with his free hand as they approached it. “Jump on three? Okay, one, two…three!”

They vaulted over the branch together, holding on to each other as they tripped on the landing. As soon as they made it to the tree line and the field where Red and Blue were they paused to catch their breath. Lance looked down and saw that their skin had melded together by another inch.

“It’s uh… it’s still going,” he said quietly, lacking all of his usual confidence and boisterous nature. _What if Coran can’t fix it and I’m stuck to Keith for the rest of my life? God, that will be so awkward on dates. We won’t even be able to form Voltron._

Keith shot him a look over his shoulder, but Lance couldn’t decipher whether it was meant to be reassuring or quelling.

“What are we going to do about the lions? We can’t separate to fly them,” Keith pointed out.

They were tackling one problem at a time, and their first goal had been to make it back to Red and Blue. Now that they were there, they had to figure out a way to get themselves and the lions back to the castle ship, orbiting just outside of the planet’s atmosphere.

“Well, we can either call for backup to see if Hunk can tow one of them back, or see if we can get Blue to carry Red on her back?” Lance suggested. “It will be quicker if we can do that, instead of waiting for them to find us. We had to fly around for a while before we found this field.”

“Okay,” Keith agreed, surprising Lance with how readily he was on board with his plan, when he usually was the first one to put up some kind of fight against his ideas.

Lance mentally reached out to Blue to convey the plan to her and was relieved when she nodded, standing at the ready. He assumed Keith had done the same as Red leapt gracefully onto Blue’s back and secured her arms and legs around Blue like a belt.

“Nice,” Lance said.

They hurried into Blue’s cockpit. Lance tapped on the controls to get Blue ready for takeoff.

“Okay, beautiful, let’s get out of here,” he said as he gripped the flight controls.

Keith made a strangled noise that got his attention. His mouth was opening and closing like a fish, completely flustered. Lance winked at him.

“I was talking to Blue, pretty boy,” he said, grinning and leaning close to where Keith stood by his console. He was gratified to see Keith’s blush spread from his cheeks down his neck and spared a brief moment to wonder how far the flush went.

Keith braced himself for flight, standing next to his pilot chair while Lance steered Blue away from the ground. His arm was angled awkwardly, giving Lance more control over the movements of their joined arms while he flew his lion. He swayed on his feet and perched on the arm of his chair, practically falling into Lance’s lap when Lance took a sharp turn around a ravine.

“You should’ve just said if you wanted to sit in the _cock_ pit, _cariño_ ,” Lance said with a cheeky smirk.

It was worth it to see Keith’s face morph into several different emotions — shock, embarrassment, faint respect for how smooth Lance’s line was — before settling into outrage. He laughed when Keith punched him.

“Ok wait—just…there,” Lance said as he shifted Keith around so he was draped across Lance’s lap, while still angling their arms towards the controls. “Well isn’t this cozy?” he added tartly.

“Shut _up_ ,” Keith snapped, holding his whole body stiffly. “Just get us off of this damn planet.”

“Your wish is my command.”

*******

By the time they got back to the ship, their skin was fused together from their wrists to halfway up their forearms.

Lance poked at it curiously as they were rushing towards the medical quarters.

“It’s weird how we’re like one now. There isn’t even a seam of skin where I end and you begin.”

Keith jerked on his arm so hard that it hurt Lance. He had to scramble into Keith’s movement to not have his skin pulled at.

“Not cool, bro!”

“Look, it’s still joining our arms together, let’s _move_ so we can get it reversed. I don’t want to be stuck like this with you in my ear forever,” Keith said through clenched teeth.

“Aww, aren’t I good company though?”

He puckered his lips and made a kissing face at Keith, and yelped again when his arm was yanked.

In the med bay they found Coran and launched into an explanation of the incident, both speaking over the other to tell their side of things and gesturing with their joined arms to describe how it was spreading.

“Paladins, please! I can’t understand you both at once, I’m afraid. One at a time,” Coran said with his palms raised towards them.

Keith took a deep breath in through his nose and slanted a warning look towards Lance to silence him.

“We were gathering the jestroir crystals you sent us down there for. It was very hot, so we both took off our suits and gloves. It happened after we were lying down in the dirt when we finished collecting the seedpods,” Keith explained in measured tones.

If the situation weren’t so dire, Lance might quip about how close Keith was to losing his chill.

“I see,” Coran said as he lifted their arms to examine them closer. “And did your skin come into contact with anything else? The readings on the Thalgorian soil are benign, and should have no effect on human skin cells. Not like this, anyway.”

“There was the oil from the flowers,” Lance added, digging though his pack and pulling out the tube of the sample he pulled from them. “I wanted to bring it back to see if it was also, uh, safe for skin contact for…reasons.”

Keith raised his eyebrows with an unimpressed look. Coran held out his hand and took the sample of oil.

“Oh dear,” he said after a moment of examining it.

“What?” Lance and Keith both spoke at the same time.

“Did this touch your skin?”

“Maybe? I don’t remember,” Keith answered. “The flowers were in the way of where the scanner picked up the seedpods, so we had to move the petals. Some might have gotten on our fingers, but that was before we took off our gloves.”

“Oh shit,” Lance muttered under his breath. Coran and Keith both turned towards him. He winced and ran his free hand through his short hair. “I think it did, Coran. Some splashed on my cheek when I was closing the lid on that container, and I think Keith rubbed his forehead to get his hair out of his eyes after touching the petals.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing you got back when you did, otherwise you’d risk being permanently fused together as it spread. This is naklyte oil, secreted from the petals of the plant,” Coran said cheerfully, oblivious to the way Lance and Keith both blanched and exchanged a look. “The Thalgorian singing beetles use the oil to attract a mate during their fertility season. It acts as an agent to keep them conjoined until they lay their eggs. We’ll be able to get you sorted, though. Sit down.”

Keith pulled one of the chairs around to the same side of the table so that they could sit facing each other.

“What, you don’t want to sit in my lap again?” Lance teased under his breath with a wide grin.

“What was that?” Coran asked as he came over with two handheld devices.

He tapped their connected arms in several places with one instrument, nodding in satisfaction.

“Nothing,” Keith said quickly, scowling. “Will that separate us?”

“Ah, not quite. The first one stops the effects of the oil from spreading,” Coran explained. He held the other Altean device over their arms and turned a knob to show the reading output, projecting it onto the wall. He made a pleased humming sound. “Good! The bones aren’t connected, it’s just skin and the beginnings of the muscle tissue.”

Lance grimaced as he examined the image, similar to an x-ray.

“I can’t separate you, though. The pods we have on hand aren’t designed to handle that type of procedure for naklyte oil reversal,” Coran said over his shoulder as he rummaged through the medical supplies.

Lance slumped against the table, noticing that Keith looked equally wilted and disappointed that there wasn’t a quick fix to this problem. Coran came back over and held out a container.

“This cream will do the trick. It’s going to take a couple of your Earthling weeks for it to work, but it will slowly pull apart your skin without damaging it. Put it on once a day before you go to sleep.”

“Before bed,” Keith echoed, his voice thin.

“Correct. Now, off you go. I expect the others will want to hear a full report on this,” Coran said, waving them out of the med bay.

*******

Lance and Keith dejectedly repeated their story in the main control room. They were submitting to Pidge and Hunk poking and prodding at their joined arms.

“That’s amazing,” Pidge said as she examined the places where their arms connected from different angles. She adjusted her glasses and made an inquisitive sound. “I can’t believe bugs use this in their mating habits. You can’t even tell that your arms were ever their own entities.”

Lance could tell that Keith was on the verge of twitching from the scrutiny. He didn’t enjoy attention the same way Lance did. Their arms were on the table and Pidge was slotted into the space between them. Hunk was leaning down from over Lance’s shoulder gently tugging until the skin was pulled taut. Even he was beginning to feel overcrowded and sick of the attention, and they had only been back on the ship for an hour.

“Buddy, you had to go touching the space goop?” Hunk nudged him with a friendly elbow.

Lance groaned and slumped down against the table. He could feel Pidge patting his shoulder sympathetically.

“I had a good reason to collect it. But… I guess if I didn’t, maybe we wouldn’t be stuck together,” he mused as he rubbed his forehead into the cool surface. It was momentarily soothing the headache that was starting to bloom behind his eyes.

“Well, if it still came into contact with Keith’s skin, then it’s likely this would still be the result. I imagine that it only spread so quickly because you both were exposed to it,” Coran said with an authoritative air of knowledge.

Lance could feel Keith wince, the movement shifting their arms. Pidge moved away to hop up onto the table.

“At least it’s not permanent,” Shiro said. He was rubbing his jaw thoughtfully, exchanging a look with Allura. She nodded in agreement with whatever silent communication they were exchanging.

Lance raised an eyebrow, wondering when they had advanced to silently communicating.

“It’s lucky you didn’t go in the water,” Coran added with a bright grin. “That would have melted your human bones and turned them into Yuxal jelly!”

Keith’s face drained of color and Lance grimaced in sympathy. He was suddenly very glad neither of them had suggested swimming in the purple river. Lance swallowed and thumped his head back against the table, scrunching up his face as his head pounded.

“That probably would have been useful information before you sent us on a resource collecting mission,” Keith said in measured tones. “All you told us was that we would find the seedpods near water.”

“Well, permanence aside, we still need to figure out what to do in the meantime,” Allura interjected, bringing the focus back to their main mission. “We’ll need to tuck ourselves away in the pockets of systems where we can hide under the radar from any Galra attacks while we wait for Keith and Lance to be fully healed.”

The group of Paladins all made various sounds of assent. They had little choice, but to go along with Allura’s decision. It wasn’t like they had asked to become defenders of the universe.

“With Keith and Lance out of commission, we’ll need you three to remain on alert in case we do stumble into trouble,” Allura added, gesturing towards Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge.

“Coran and Shiro, let’s go find some suitable locations. Pidge, if you would be so kind as to continue your work on the cloaking function you want to add into the castle’s security, please,” Allura directed.

“I’m going to go check the lions over to make sure nothing from Thalgor affected them,” Hunk added, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder. “See you guys later.”

Lance and Keith sat at the table for a few moments, watching the flurry of activity around them. Keith caught his eye and inclined his head towards the door questioningly, and Lance nodded. Together they slipped from the room to find something useful to do.

*******

Lance spent the rest of the afternoon bickering with Keith as they grew increasingly more annoyed with each other. He quickly learned how easy it was to tire of someone’s constant company — even when Keith was being silent and brooding he was grating on Lance’s nerves. He felt itchy in his own skin; his limbs were jittery with the need to move on his own without worrying how each movement would affect Keith. They both kept trying to walk in different directions and ended up tugging at the skin where they were fused together.

After dinner they both balked when they realized they would have to use the bathroom at some point.

“No way in hell,” Keith said, already grabbing Lance’s hand and dragging him along as he stalked off to find Coran for a solution.

“Coran!” Lance called gratefully when they spotted him. “Buddy, you’ve gotta help us out!”

“How can I assist you, Paladins?”

Coran turned towards them and was surprised when Keith didn’t stop walking, reaching out to grab Coran’s sleeve with his free hand and steering all three of them back towards the med bay.

“We’ll have to use the bathroom together,” Keith gritted out.

“Alright?” Coran inquired slowly.

Keith made a frustrated sound in his throat and pushed Coran into the medical quarters. He sighed and glared at his boots. Lance waited for him to tell Coran what the problem was, raising his eyebrows expectantly. When he showed no inclination of giving an answer Lance whined and turned to Coran.

“We don’t want to go in front of each other, y’know?” he gave Coran an imploring look, willing him to get the need for privacy. Coran still looked unfazed. Lance huffed out a pained sigh. “Dude, it’s like… super private on Earth. Is there anything you can do about that for us? And what about showering together? There’s bonding, and then there is _bonding_ , and that is just a bit much. Is there, like, some kind of space tablet we can take to keep us clean? Or the decontamination chamber?”

Keith looked marginally relived to not have to beg about something so private. His ears were very pink.

“Oh, I see,” Coran said, finally sounding like he understood where they were coming from. “I may have something. There’s no ‘ _space tablet_ ’ I can give you to assist with your hygiene habits, but I can do something about your bodily waste.”

Coran tapped on the screen of a podium next to the healing pods and a capsule popped up from a floor panel in a vapor cloud. He wiggled his fingers as he skimmed over the different shelves until he found what he was looking for. He held up something filled with a shimmering yellow liquid in a test tube.

“This should do the trick. This is an injection that will allow you to temporarily break down your body’s waste so that you’ll only need to urinate,” Coran explained as he held out his hand to take their arms.

They both exchanged a look and Lance shrugged. Keith closed his eyes and lifted his arm for Coran, pursing his lips into a thin line when he was injected. Lance stared at his face while his eyes were still closed, noticing that Keith’s lips were chapped and how thick his brows were. He was jolted out of his thoughts when he felt a sharp pain in his own arm.

“Ow,” he grumbled, rubbing where the injection site was tender.

It was only going to be a small mercy, he realized. He frowned at Keith.

“I still don’t want to have to listen to Keith take a wiz, man,” he complained quietly.

“You think I want to hear you do the same thing?” Keith shot back, curling his lip.

Lance shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re into, bro. I don’t judge, though.”

“Oh my god,” Keith groaned, turning and walking away so that Lance had to stumble over his feet to catch up.

“Look, it’s cool, we don’t have to shower right away even though I feel absolutely disgusting after hiking through a jungle,” Lance offered, an idea striking him. “For now we can just use the sink to wash up. That way we won’t need to strip down all the way.”

It occurred to him as an afterthought that with their arms joined they would have to figure out how to get out of their shirts. _Cross that bridge when we get to it_ , he told himself. He wondered if they would be able to use the decontamination chamber to get clean while they were still wearing the clothes they had on under their armor suits.

Keith looked pained when he glanced back over his shoulder, almost like he was on the brink of an aneurism.

“My mama used to say that if you make a face like that long enough it would get stuck that way,” Lance pointed out. “Dude, you look totally constipated. Is that stuff Coran gave us not agreeing with you?”

“Jesus, do you ever shut up?” Keith snapped. “I don’t know how Hunk and Pidge can stand to be around you constantly.”

Lance recoiled as if he’d been struck, pulling up short. Keith froze, turning back to him with an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry, Lance. I didn’t really mean that. I’m just…today was a really long day, and there’s nothing more I want to do right now than to go shower and be alone. But I can’t, because of this.” He held up their arms. “So…I’m sorry, I’m just on edge. I don’t do well around people all the time. I like to have alone time.”

“It’s cool.” Lance patted Keith’s shoulder to accept his apology.

Part of him felt bad, knowing that Keith liked to disappear for hours on his own when the rest of the team was hanging out together in the rec room. Sometimes Keith joined them, but usually Lance saw him wandering the halls alone. Shiro was the only other team member he was actually close with.

By unspoken agreement they walked to the hall where their rooms were. Lance trailed to a stop when they were a few feet away from Keith’s room.

“What’s wrong now?” Keith asked. He sounded exhausted.

“Well, uh. With the whole conjoined twins thing…” his words petering off. He held up their arms, and Keith raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Yeah, um, we can’t separate to go to our own rooms.”

“Obviously.”

“Okay, so which room are we going to use?”

Keith looked back and forth between the rooms. A look of horror dawned on his face that made Lance’s anxiety kick up a notch.

“What? What’s that face for?” he asked quickly, grabbing Keith’s shoulder and shaking him.

“We are going to have to share a bed,” Keith said stiffly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  _cariño_ \- term of endearment: sweetheart, darling, sunshine, honey, etc  
>   
>  Kudos + comments are ♥ | Come say hi on [tumblr](http://starboysinspace.tumblr.com)!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next chapter are going to have alternating POV, and the final chapter will be all from Keith's POV. This chapter also ended up getting really long, so I've split it up into two parts. Shout out to Emma, who commented on Chapter 1 and mentioned a get along shirt, I managed to slide something in there for you!

The first night didn’t go well.

They spent a long time arguing over which room they were going to sleep in, but in the end they finally decided to use Lance’s so that he didn’t need to cart his skincare products to Keith’s room.

Once they entered, they avoided the bed in favor of facing the bathroom door in silence.

Lance took a step forward, finally growing sick of the sticky, salty feeling on his skin from long-cooled sweat. “It’s fine. It’s not a big deal. We’re just going to go in and wash ourselves off with washcloths. The sooner we do that, the closer we are to this very long day being over.”

There was still the matter of getting out of the undershirts they wore under their suits, and the fact that they’d have to change into the track bottoms the castle provided, but Lance pushed those things aside as he stared Keith down. He was glancing back and forth between the door to the bathroom and Lance, worrying his lip with his teeth. It looked pink and swollen after how often he’d bit at it since they returned to the ship. After a few minutes of tense quiet, he sighed and nodded, allowing Lance pull him into the small bathroom with a minimum of fussing.

The lights cast a dim glow on the metallic room, something Allura and Coran had programmed the ship to do so that the light would simulate the hours of daylight so that the Paladins didn’t go crazy in space without any real indicator of time.

There was a counter to the left with a deep basin and a number of chrome faucets. A modest mirror hung on the wall above the sink. Lance’s makeshift skincare collection was lining the counter on either side of the sink in bottles of different shapes and sizes. They were a mix of things he’d concocted himself with Coran’s help, and suitable substances he had found on planets they visited.

A shower pod was on the opposite wall, and a toilet beyond that, set back slightly into an open cubicle. The glowing panels brightened as they entered, giving them enough light to see by. Lance put the tin of cream Coran had provided them with beside the sink.

“Okay, first things first…” Lance trailed off and made a flapping motion with his hand to indicate their soiled shirts. “Do you have your knife?”

“Always,” Keith said. He pulled out his dagger and Lance nodded in approval.

“Good. Alright, so just…cut them off, I guess?”

“Works for me. I don’t see how we would manage to get them off otherwise. These suits are like a second skin.”

Lance tried very hard not to think of that while he held one arm up and pinched the bottom of the shirt so Keith could slice through the fabric with the sharp blade. His skin felt cool as it was slowly revealed. Keith glanced at him once, his eyes brimming with poorly concealed curiosity, while he cut away the seams of his shirt. Lance shivered as the shirt finally slid free from his shoulder and fell to the floor in a shredded heap.

“Do you want me to do you, or—?”

Keith shot him a flat look before spinning his dagger once in his hand.

 _Showy little shit_ , Lance thought with an annoyed glare.

Keith took less care slicing the knife through his own shirt, cutting it away in three quick jerks until he stood there, bare-chested in Lance’s bathroom. His eyes skittered quickly over the pale expanse of Keith’s chest, hastily cataloguing the hard buds of his nipples — a dusky brown color, he noted with mild interest — and the two moles he had on his smooth stomach. Lance briefly caught himself thinking that for as scrawny and malnourished as Keith appeared, it certainly was a different story without his clothes on. He looked strong and solid like this; Keith was all sharp planes and hard, lean muscles. Lance’s eyes landed on the jut of Keith’s hip bones and jolted into action to cover the fact that he had been _staring_.

 _Jeez, Lance, get it together_.

They peeled off the legging-like pants of their under suit uniforms in heavy silence, both dropping the bunched up bundles down the laundry chute that would replicate their clothes for them. Lance and Keith both stood awkwardly in their boxer briefs, avoiding looking at each other. From the corner of his eye he could see that Keith’s briefs were red, and he had to contain a nervous laugh.

After a strained moment, Lance cleared his throat and shifted to pull towels from the linen compartment beside the sink. He offered a short stack to Keith and turned on the tap to soak one of his in warm, soapy water.

When they had first come to the Castle of Lions, Lance had been fascinated with the similarities and differences between alien and human appliances and facilities. The bathrooms were especially interesting, decked out with plumbing technology that provided soap and shampoo through the taps connected to the sinks and showers. He’d even managed to tinker with the settings through the control panel in his room to set the soaps and shampoos to his preferences, finding scents he enjoyed. His favorite was a citrusy scented soap that reminded him of lemons, and a shampoo that he swore smelled just like the ocean air.

The first few weeks he had luxuriated in the shower for as long as he could stand, just filling the small bathroom with ocean-scented steam and closing his eyes, picturing his home near the beach, his family. It had helped with the aching pangs of loneliness and homesickness he was grappling with, if only marginally.

Lance had made sure to let everyone know about his discovery, which had mesmerized Pidge and Hunk when they discovered there were even more scents that couldn’t be described on Earth. Lance noticed once that Keith favored a sharp, spicy smelling soap that he could only characterize as smoky hot sauce.

He wrung out his soapy towel and shifted out of the way as best he could to give Keith room to wet and soap up his own towel. He began to wipe down his body in quick, efficient swipes of the damp towel, cleaning away the grime of the day. Lance’s eyes darted over to the shower pod momentarily, longing for a soak in the soothing comfort of ocean-scented steam to de-stress, but he knew that would have to wait until they could solve their problem.

It was clumsy. They knocked things off the counter, uncoordinated with their arms fused together. They both kept trying to move on their own, following their natural instincts and habits, only to elbow each other in the face and trip over each other’s feet. They both tried to clean themselves off with their free hands, but naturally wanted to move the arms connected to each other. At one point they were locked in a competitive tugging match over a dry towel full of annoyed grunts and muttered jibes.

After they managed to finish washing and drying themselves without killing each other, Keith scoffed at Lance’s nighttime skincare routine, letting his arm flop as a useless dead weight while Lance smeared moisturizer into his skin. When he was done, he picked up Coran’s cream and squinted at the tin.

Keith interrupted him before he could say anything. “You’re the skincare nut, why don’t you do it.”

“Gladly. We know I won’t miss any spots. With those pores of yours I couldn’t trust you to do this right,” Lance replied loftily.

Keith rolled his eyes and watched with disinterest as Lance unscrewed the lid and scooped out a healthy dollop. The cream was pink and cool to the touch, but as soon as he started to spread it meticulously over every inch of their connected skin he felt an odd sensation; the cream started to turn a deep shade of violet.

“Did Coran mention a tingling sensation?” Lance asked, wiggling his fingers. “Do you feel that?”

“I don’t feel anything. Let’s just try to go to bed,” Keith muttered sulkily.

They shuffled back out into Lance’s sleeping quarters, where the lights were dimmed to a soothing blue.

Keith tensed suddenly and cursed under his breath.

“What is it?” Lance prodded.

Keith had a deeply dissatisfied frown on his face, and he looked like he wanted to cross his arms tightly across his naked chest. He grumbled his answer just loud enough for Lance to hear him. “I should have gone back to my room first for my sweatpants. I’m not about to go traipsing down the hall in just boxers, attached to you.”

Lance raised his eyebrows, but kept quiet, refraining from pointing out that it wasn’t a very far distance to Keith’s room. He’d picked the room right next to the one Lance selected.

“No biggie, buddy. I’ve got your back,” Lance assured him with a casual shrug. He pulled out two pairs of track bottoms from the sliding compartment next to his bed and offered the extra pair to Keith.

They both wobbled and stumbled while they struggled into the clothes at the same time, trying not to overbalance and topple to the floor. Lance noticed that his pants were a couple of inches too long on Keith. The hems pooled around his feet in a baggy heap of excess fabric, dragging on the floor. It was strange to see Keith stripped down this way; Lance was used to him being something unattainable and perfect — gifted at everything he did in a way that Lance could never dream of catching up to.

He quickly turned his head away to hide his smile over how it softened Keith’s jagged edges and made him look a little vulnerable standing there with no shirt and oversized pajama pants. Lance covered his smile with his free hand, rubbing at his lips to get them to behave.

There was a new problem to face when they both realized that between the bunk and the way their arms were joined, there wasn’t a way to allow both of them to lay on their backs side by side. They stood by the edge of the bed, neither of them making a move to be the first to get in.

“Should we forget the bed, and just sleep on the couches in the lounge area?” Keith suggested. Lance wasn’t sure, but it seemed like there was a faint note of hope in his voice.

“What, are you kidding me?” Lance protested. “Hell no. I need a full night’s beauty rest for these gorgeous looks, and there’s no way I can get my fill sleeping cramped up on a couch. If I can survive sharing a bed with my two younger cousins for an entire month during a summer vacation, then I can get through spending a few nights sharing with you.”

Without waiting for his answer, he maneuvered Keith into the bed until they were both lying down, facing each other with their arms cramped between them and their skin stretching at the edges of where it was fused together. Keith grunted and winced when the skin pulled harder.

“This won’t work like this, let’s just—” Keith’s mumbling abruptly cut off as he moved around.

They tried two other positions before Keith huffed out a heavy sigh and rolled to face away from Lance so that their connected arms rested on his hip.

“Oh, that works,” Lance said, grateful to finally have some relief from the sharp tugs of skin and awkward sleeping positions. He waited a beat before leaning close to Keith’s ear to tease him. “You should’ve just said you were down to cuddle. I love being the big spoon, you know? Or the little spoon. I’m not picky.”

Keith scoffed and shoved his shoulder back into Lance’s chest in a half-hearted attack. Lance shifted to rest their arms more comfortably, draping them over Keith’s waist.

Keith stiffened. “Just — stay on your side of the bed.”

Lance hummed in agreement as the lights dimmed lower, casting his room in the same kind of faint light that glow in the dark ceiling stars gave off. He’d gotten some for his seventh birthday and never bothered to take them down, not until he had packed up and shipped off to the Garrison. His last thoughts were of those stars in his bedroom as he fell asleep.

*******

Keith blinked his eyes open when he woke up, struck with feeling momentarily disoriented and forgetting where he was. He relaxed marginally when he remembered that the weight over his waist was Lance’s arm. He was surprised that he had been able to sleep at all, since he usually only managed a handful of hours each night, but he had fallen asleep quickly. _I was just really drained after the day we had_ , he reasoned, trying to ignore the way his stomach felt jittery.

He felt so warm and comfortable. He turned his head into the pillow and was hit with Lance’s scent, a mix of lemony tang and salty like the sea. It always drew him in whenever he caught a whiff of it, and sleeping in the same bed with Lance was like being surrounded in a cocoon of the comforting smell.

Without being fully aware of what he was doing, he pressed back further into Lance’s hold, making him hum and hug Keith closer.

“You’re a nice cuddler…who would have thought?” Lance’s voice was groggy with sleep.

Keith stiffened and awkwardly shuffled away until he was forced to stop before he bumped his head into the wall. He didn’t know what possessed him to savor Lance’s embrace in the first place. He stared at the wall with wide eyes and tried to breathe steadily, his mind racing for some explanation to play it off like he wasn’t trying to enjoy Lance spooning him.

“Oh, relax. I didn’t mean anything by it. I cuddle with Hunk all the time. In fact, if you get the chance you should try it. Man’s a champion hugger.” Lance’s sleepy babbling helped to reel him back in from the rush of panic, calming his pounding heartbeat and grounding him.

“I have to pee,” he grumbled to cover up his embarrassment. The tips of his ears were burning.

Lance whined, rustling the blanket and pillow behind him. He mumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Keith to catch. “Figures you’d be an early riser.”

They tripped on their way out of bed, and Keith had to grab Lance around the waist to hold him up before they both toppled to the ground. They trailed into the bathroom in a slow drag, still unused to being connected. Lance was scratching absently at his stomach with his free hand and turning his head away to stifle a yawn.

They came to a stop in front of the toilet and both stared down at it with matching grimaces.

“Listen, dude, it’s just like the urinals in public bathrooms. It’s not ideal, but whatever. We can get through it, right?”

Keith glared at the toilet, reigning in the urge to kick it petulantly. This whole situation was bullshit. He didn’t appreciate Lance’s idea of pep talk. “I’ve never touched anyone I had to stand next to at the urinal,” he said acidly.

“Well yeah, _duh_. Who the hell would?” Lance questioned, running a hand through his hair, leaving some sections sticking up at odd angles. He pursed his mouth in thought for a moment before he held up a finger. “Okay, what about this: I’ll just close my eyes and cover my ears while you go, and then you can do the same until we can figure out a better solution.”

“Fine,” he bit out.

It was humiliating, but they managed to relieve themselves without incident, both squeezing their eyes tightly shut and clamping their hands over their ears while they took turns. Keith wondered if Coran or Pidge had earplugs that they could borrow until they had their problem sorted. He made a mental note to ask when he saw either of them.

Keith stood by and waited while Lance shimmied into his jeans and pulled on his shoes when they went back into the bedroom. He looked on while Lance frowned, holding up his usual shirt and jacket. Keith felt weird, standing there with one arm wrapped around his bare stomach, still wearing Lance’s track bottoms.

Before they could leave to go to Keith’s room, there was a knock on the door.

He raised an eyebrow at the way Lance flushed and hesitated before opening it.

“Hey guys,” Hunk greeted with a cheery smile that always managed to set Keith at ease. He offered a small smile in return. “Since you’re going to be, um, stuck like this, I thought maybe you’d need some help. I found some extra Altean fabric and worked out a way for you to be able to wear shirts without having to cut any holes in whatever the castle already provided. Look.”

Hunk held up an arm where he had fabric draped over it. He picked it up and showed them how it had a hole for their heads to go through and open sides with long strips.

Lance was grinning wide and punched Hunk lightly on the shoulder. “Nice! Good to know you have a fallback as a fashion designer if being an engineer or a space defender doesn’t work out for you.”

Hunk laughed and shrugged. “Either that or I could make a killing as a space chef.”

“Hunk, you’re a genius,” Keith chimed in, smiling wider. Relief rushed through him at the offering.

Lance bowed deeply with a theatrical gesture for Hunk to put the first shirt he’d crafted over his head. “You are the best,” he said sincerely.

“Yeah, I was inspired by that last marketplace we went to on the outer edges of the Saltea system. With the space pirates. The real ones, not the ones Coran thought would be at that mall the one time,” Hunk chattered amiably as he helped Lance into his creation.

Lance straightened back up and examined the way the Altean fabric was draped over his shoulders, his back, and his chest. He spun in place to look from every angle he could. “Sweet, it’s like a cape. Thanks, buddy!”

“A bit,” Hunk agreed with an amused laugh. “Here, so you just pull this side around like a wrap and you can knot it with the longer part so it’s all closed up.”

“Thank you, Hunk,” Keith repeated gratefully as Hunk helped him into his own shirt.

He knew it was a silly notion to feel embarrassed to be around Lance without a shirt on, but he felt less exposed now that he was covered up. Somehow standing around in just borrowed track pants was different than walking around the castle in just his swim trunks and a towel, or using the showers on the training deck.

He briefly pondered how comfortable the new shirts would be to sleep in so that he didn’t have a repeat of how he’d woken up, pressing further into Lance’s heated skin as his arm wrapped tighter around him. He didn’t understand why it had felt so _right_ to have Lance hold him that way.

Keith ducked his head to hide the pink tinge of his cheeks as the three of them left Lance’s room.

“We’ll meet you at breakfast, we still have to stop by Keith’s room for his other stuff,” Lance said, waving Hunk along as the three of them exited his room.

“Later, dudes,” Hunk called as he ambled down the hall.

They made a brief stop in Keith’s room so that he could drag on his usual black pants and shove his feet into his boots. His arms still felt oddly bare, different than when he just wore his t-shirt, and he wished he could put his jacket on. He left it lying on his bed as Lance poked him in the side.

“C’mon, I don’t want Pidge to steal all of the good goo,” Lance urged as he rushed them out of the room.

They took a few shuffling steps before Lance huffed in annoyance and pulled them to a stop.

“Let’s try this,” he suggested and tucked Keith against his side, his arm wrapping around his shoulders and twisting to hold Keith’s hand to loosen the strain on their arms.

“Um,” Keith choked out, at a loss for what to say about Lance draping an arm over his shoulders like they were some kind of _couple_. His heart sped up again, thudding inside his chest.

He had to admit as they took the first few steps that it was an easier way to walk compared to the stumbling line they’d been walking in before.

Lance nodded and hummed in approval, squeezing Keith’s body closer as they walked through the corridors to meet the others for breakfast. Keith exhaled shakily and tried not to focus on how warm and solid Lance felt against his side.

“Jeez, you’re so tense. And you blush so easily, Mister Pasty,” Lance teased, glancing down at him and prodding his side with a sharp jab. “Y’know, for a guy who holed up in the desert, you really think you’d have gotten a bit more sun. You look like an emo vampire bat.”

Keith snarled and stomped on his foot. “Shut up!”

“Ow, dude! C’mon, it was just a joke!” Lance was hopping on his uninjured leg and leaning heavily on Keith. They swayed towards the wall and nearly collided before Lance managed to regain his balance. “You’re so uptight,” he complained with an exaggerated pout.

“And everything is a joke to you,” Keith rounded on him hotly, ready to lash out at anything to expel all of the conflicting feelings welling up inside of him that were fighting for some kind of outlet. “You never take anything seriously, that’s what got us into this mess in the first place!”

Lance’s blue eyes flashed briefly with hurt, and then he quickly masked it with a smug smirk.

“I’m not the one who was snuggling up to me after one night,” he pointed out.

Keith felt heat prickle all over his skin and he shoved roughly, yelping when Lance tumbled to the ground and took Keith with him. They crashed together painfully as they landed. Keith banged his elbow against the floor and his knee ended up digging into Lance’s thigh.

“ _Carajo_. Ugh,” Lance groaned in pain. “Okay, okay, truce? This is stupid and I’m hungry. Pidge has _definitely_ stolen all of the good goo by now.”

Keith debated holding a grudge longer, but then he remembered that he wouldn’t be able to storm off and give Lance the cold shoulder as easily when he was still _attached_ to him by the arm. He still had to go to bed with him that night, and the next night, and every night until they could separate their arms. _God, I hate this so much!_

“You deserve it,” Keith groused as they struggled back to a standing position, bruised and aching.

Neither of them said anything when Lance maneuvered Keith until he was comfortably tucked against his side again, and Keith had to fight the urge to lay his cheek against Lance’s shoulder the rest of the way to breakfast, despite the rage boiling his blood. Something about Lance’s hold helped him calm down from his bout of fury over the teasing.

*******

“Well, well, well,” Pidge greeted with a sly grin as soon as they walked into the dining quarters. “If it isn’t our resident honeymooners. How did the first night go? Did you get to know each other?”

She waggled her eyebrows at the pair of them as they fumbled to sit down while attached. Lance shot her a flat look in silent warning. He wasn’t in the mood after Keith had tackled him to the ground. He could already feel a bruise blooming on his hip, the dull throbbing ache making his teeth grit.

“Did you get any sleep?” Shiro asked as he slid over two bowls of green goo.

“Yeah,” Keith answered. He didn’t offer anything else before digging into his food.

Shiro glanced at Lance with a worried look. Lance shrugged and scooped a spoonful of space goo into his mouth. He didn’t really want to get into an explanation about how he had goaded Keith until he’d tackled him to the ground. The team ate in relative silence for a few minutes. Hunk and Coran were debating the best application for the spices they had recently found at their last resource stop before Thalgor to improve their meals.

Pidge leaned over with a mischievous look gleaming in her eyes. “You do realize that you’re basically in the space version of a get along shirt.”

Lance let out a pained whine, automatically jerking the arm connected to Keith’s reflexively. Keith growled and shot him a pointed glare, tugging their arms back to where they’d been resting on the corner of the table.

“Case in point,” she said smugly, gesturing between the pair of them.

“That’s enough, Pidge,” Shiro cut in sternly.

She jumped, looking properly chastised. Pidge mumbled an apology and went back to eating while tinkering with one of her robot drone projects.

Keith nodded gratefully at Shiro and their morning meal continued. When Shiro’s attention was fully focused on Allura, Lance took the opportunity to lean close to Keith and whisper, “Quit being such a dick and jerking our arms around, or else I’ll come sit next to you and put my arm around your shoulder again.”

Keith angled his head to the side and glared at him fiercely from the corner of his eye. “Try it, and I’ll break your arm off.”

After breakfast the team was reconvened in the usual training room for their daily practice regimen. Lance and Keith were struggling through the usual trials against the gladiators, even while being able to stand mostly back to back if they angled their arms the right way.

“I said go left, not right!” Keith shouted at him as he tried to slash his bayard sword at an approaching robot.

“I did go left!” Lance sniped in return as he tried to shoot his bayard gun with one hand. It was difficult to manage with the size of his blaster.

“ _My_ left!”

When they both were hit by the gladiators and sank through the floor, landing in a miserable heap, Shiro stopped them from trying for a third round.

“Okay, this clearly isn’t working for you two,” he sighed, rubbing at his temple. “If you can’t work together as a team in combat, even with the handicap of your arms being glued together, we’re going to have to put you on something else. If you can beat the other simulations Pidge has been working on, then you can try the gladiators again. If you can manage those, then you can try sparring in teams of three.”

Keith pressed his lips into a thin line and looked away. Lance silently agreed with him; he hated letting Shiro down and disappointing him.

“Pidge?” Shiro prompted without elaborating.

“Yup! The new strategy simulation training programs I’ve been coding are all ready! Come on, guys, I set them up in the next room,” she said, jumping up eagerly. “This is going to be a great user test to see how well they work for our practice.”

Pidge led them into a room with a wall of Altean computers and holograms. She quickly explained how to start up the simulators, and that the goal of each was different. Her excited chatter became a litany of advanced tech speak that went over Lance’s head.

He plopped down, pulling Keith by extension. He nearly landed in Lance’s lap, but scrambled to change that before he was fully seated.

“Do we do it separately or together?” Lance asked.

“I’ve only programmed them for a single user at the moment, so you’ll have to work together to reach the objectives,” Pidge answered on her way out of the room. She called to them over her shoulder. “Have fun! Try not to kill each other!”

Keith sighed and reached forward to run the program. They both jumped as they were immersed in a hologram simulation that was a large puzzle room. They both looked around, and Lance noticed a glowing door that they needed to figure out how to get to.

“How is this supposed to help? I was hoping for something like Zelda, or like the flight simulators from the Garrison,” Lance complained.

“I think we have to solve the puzzles in the room to advance,” Keith pointed out just before the hologram shifted and showed Galra sentry soldiers entering the room. “Uh, while also avoiding those guys, I guess.”

They argued over how to solve the puzzles, Keith choosing to charge the guards while Lance opted for dodging in and out of the action while trying to figure out what to do. Their strategy styles clashed, and they failed the first few simulations.

Eventually they managed to find a way to work together to get to the end goal of the simulations.

“Not half bad,” Lance complimented, shooting Keith a smug grin and a finger gun.

“I guess we do still make a good team, when it counts,” Keith said, shrugging.

“Uh, yeah, when you finally _listen_ to my brilliant ideas and quit rushing head first into everything, all shoot first and ask questions later.” Lance ducked as Keith made to tackle him. “Ah! Okay, okay — see what I mean? This is exactly what I’m talking—”

“ _Lance_!” Keith shouted.

*******

Keith pressed his lips together to keep quiet as Lance was applying the pink cream later that night. He couldn’t feel it before when Lance had pointed it out, but now he noticed the tingling sensation as the cream changed color. He leaned closer to see if there was any change yet, sighing when he couldn’t tell if their skin had started to come apart or not.

“And…done,” Lance announce, dragging out the syllables.

Neither of them said anything as they climbed into bed. Keith hesitated for only a moment before he rolled into the same position from the previous night, allowing Lance to drape their arms over his waist. He listened to Lance sigh as they both got comfortable, noting that he was someone who twitched and fidgeted a lot before he finally settled. He listened to Lance’s steady breaths, counting them as his thoughts swirled.

“Do you think about it a lot?” Keith blurted into the near-darkness. He wasn’t sure what prompted him to ask, or if Lance was even still awake.

“Hm?” Lance shifted, bumping his knee into the back of Keith’s leg. “Sorry. Think about what?”

“Earth,” Keith said quietly. He wanted to curl himself up into a tight ball, but he couldn’t do that with the lack of space.

“Yeah. All the time,” Lance replied. His voice was tinged with several emotions that Keith had trouble picking apart. He sighed, his arm tightening around Keith’s waist briefly. “I always think about it. My family…I hadn’t talked to them in a couple of weeks, when we left. If I had known, I would have called my mom every day, y’know?”

Keith hummed, unsure how to answer when the only family he could remember was his friendship with Shiro when he’d joined the Garrison. His parents were a distant blur that he could only find in his dreams, and he tried his best to block out the countless foster homes.

“You know what I miss, though? Other than like, my family and food and music and stuff…I mean, there’s a lot that I miss…” Lance trailed off, his voice growing wistful. Keith felt him shift again. “I really miss weather. _Our_ weather, not just what we’ve seen out here. I miss the rain.”

“It didn’t rain too often in the desert,” Keith said quietly.

“What do you miss the most?” Lance asked curiously.

“I…” Keith wished he hadn’t started this conversation. He wanted to say he missed the same things as Lance, but Shiro was here with him, and the team felt like the closest thing he had to a real family. He could say he missed food, but after a year of surviving on stolen rations from the Garrison, he couldn’t complain too much about the food they came across in space. The truth was that Keith felt better out in space than he did back on Earth. He cleared his throat and pulled the blanket up to his chin. “I miss watching the sunrise over the canyon, I guess.”

“You guess?” Lance prodded.

Keith faked a yawn and burrowed deeper into the pillow. “Mm. Tired. Go to sleep.”

Lance was silent for a long moment, and Keith was worried that he would press him for an answer, but he settled back down and dropped it.

The second full day went slightly better, despite the constant bickering between them, but after the third night Keith woke up in the morning more tangled together with Lance than when they had gone to sleep. He froze as he realized one of Lance’s legs were twisted around his calf, and his palm was pressed flat against Keith’s chest. He was suddenly very glad he had slept with the shirt Hunk made for him, despite the way it sort of strangled him at night. He could feel the heat of Lance’s palm seeping through the shirt.

Lance groaned faintly in his sleep and Keith felt his nose bump into the back of his neck. His hot breath was giving him goosebumps with each puff of breath. Keith swore he felt Lance’s lips brush over his skin, making his eyes go wide and his stomach flip over in a somersault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  _carajo_ \- fuck
> 
> Kudos + comments are ♥ | Come say hi on [tumblr](http://starboysinspace.tumblr.com)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating has jumped up! Which is weird, for me, because I'm used to posting completed stories. This is my first time posting a story as I'm writing it. Anyway, we're finally getting to the juicy bits in this chapter! Still alternating view points here, and for the final chapter it will be all from Keith's POV.

Keith shifted away from Lance as carefully as he could so he didn’t wake him up. His heart skipped a beat when Lance groaned again. _What is he dreaming about?_

He startled in alarm when Lance’s hand twisted in the fabric of Keith’s shirt and tugged him back against the warm expanse of his chest. It was like a wall of heat along his back, encircling him and wrapping him up. Keith let out a faint, involuntary sound and froze when Lance began to stir.

“Man, I just had the _weirdest_ dream,” he said as he sat up, looming over him.

Keith’s eyes skittered across Lance’s bare chest, his bronze skin creased from the sheets. It looked smooth to the touch and Keith had to hold himself back from reaching out to find out. He already vaguely knew what it felt like since Lance had been sleeping shirtless each night, he reminded himself.

“Yeah?” Keith answered belatedly when he realized Lance was staring down at him with his boundless blue eyes. He blinked down at Keith sleepily. “Um, what was it about?”

Lance was quiet, but he was still leaning over Keith. He swore Lance’s eyes were looking at his mouth, but he couldn’t say exactly, since his own were distracted; they had already strayed to Lance’s plump looking lips before quickly looking away. 

“It was nothing. I’m already forgetting about it,” Lance said finally, sitting up straight and scratching through his clipped hair absently. He grimaced and raised one arm to sniff at his armpit. “Ugh. Okay, sink baths aren’t cutting it,” he complained.

Keith sat up and frowned. “They were your idea.”

“I know. I can’t last another week and a half like that, though. Not if we still have to train every day,” Lance lamented. He turned a pleading gaze on Keith. “We have to either suck it up or figure out a way for me to be in the shower without the pod door closing.”

“And how do you propose we keep the door open? As far as I know, they’re designed to stay closed once the water starts up. Besides, you’d get the floor all wet if it’s open _and_ then I might see you naked,” Keith said distastefully. He longed to have use of both of his arms to cross them over his chest. “Can’t you just stick with the sink baths?”

“I can deal with you being gross and unclean, but I really need to wash myself. Like, for real. Please, Keith?” Lance was actually pouting and giving him an annoyingly charming puppy dog expression.

“Ugh, fine,” Keith said after a moment, throwing up his free hand. He rubbed his face and flopped back against the bed, ignoring the slight pull at their connected arms. “What if we use the training deck showers? The ones on that level are…wider and more open compared to the ones in the sleeping quarters.”

“Works for me,” Lance agreed. “I’m not going to wash your back, though.”

Keith threw a pillow at Lance’s face and smirked when he easily hit his target. Lance yelped and threw the pillow back, retaliating further by running his fingers up Keith’s sides and tickling them. Keith let out an undignified shriek and twisted to wrestle Lance as best as he could while they were joined at the arms. He managed to tilt his hips up and wrap his legs around Lance’s waist so that he could twist and pin him to the bed.

They were both laughing and breathless from their impromptu tickle wrestling war, their fused arms between them while they used their free hands to attack. Keith was quick to use their arms to his advantage, pinning them above Lance’s head and quickly scooting up to pin Lance’s shoulders with his knees.

“Yield, I yield!” Lance was giggling while Keith tickled his side.

Keith sat back on his heels and grinned down at Lance. His face was flushed and his eyes were bright with amusement. He was smiling back up at Keith.

“Dude, I’m glad we’re on the same team. It would suck to actually have to go up against you in battle. You fight dirty,” Lance said, still catching his breath.

“I fight to win,” Keith corrected.

Lance snorted. His free hand had landed on the outside of Keith’s calve, the tips of his fingers a sudden startling sensation against his leg.

Keith blinked when he realized the position they were in. He was still pinning their joined arms over Lance’s head and he was basically sitting on Lance’s chest. The intimacy of it made his cheeks prickle with a rush of heat as he scrambled off of Lance and stood by the edge of the bed.

“Okay, now I really need that shower. You aren’t going to start giving me a workout every morning before breakfast, are you?” Lance’s question interjected Keith’s wild thoughts.

Keith’s mind immediately filled with a different activity that would leave them sweating and breathless and he made a strained choking sound as he struggled to breathe properly. He was grateful when Lance didn’t comment on his reaction, seemingly oblivious to Keith’s inappropriate internal struggle.

Keith was silent as they shuffled to the training deck facilities. He was tucked against Lance’s side again — something he was alarmingly growing used to since this situation had started.

He spared a brief thought of worry over how he would handle it when they were separated. They surely wouldn’t continue to walk around like that, as if they were a couple. He closed his eyes to block out those thoughts and mentally walked himself through a fight sequence to clear his head.

When they reached the showers they exchanged a wary glance.

“This would actually be easier if we were connected side by side instead of cross body,” Keith sighed. Lance hummed in agreement.

“If we stretch you can probably stand under the next showerhead, you’ll just have to do things one handed,” Lance suggested.

“We’ll have to do them one handed anyway, I’m not going to have your hand near my dick,” Keith countered. He sighed again and shook his head. “That won’t work, though. How would we deal with turning around?”

“Oh, right. Well, we could just switch showers. Or you could step out of the spray to lather yourself up and then step backwards?” Lance tried, pursing his lips and stretching them to one side of his mouth.

“You’ll probably just slip and blame me for it,” Keith muttered. “Okay, what if… what if we do it the same way as the bathroom. We’ll get in the same stall because they’re wide enough, and swap out. I’ll turn the other way so that you can shower quickly, and then we’ll switch.”

Lance squinted at him with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. Keith squeezed his free hand into a tight fist, letting his blunt nails dig into his palm to keep from fidgeting under scrutiny. After a long pause, Lance shrugged.

“Whatever, dude, as long as I get to wash up.”

He reached into the shower stall to turn on the water controls. The showers there had the same tap system as the private bathrooms, and Lance filled the room with ocean-scented steam. He let out a quiet sigh that sounded like relief to Keith before he unceremoniously began stripping out of his clothes without preamble or shyness towards Keith.

He cleared his throat and angled his body away to give Lance some privacy, carefully stepping backwards when Lance shuffled into the shower spray. Keith’s eyes widened when he heard Lance let out a pleased groan as the hot water splashed onto his body. He focused on meticulously cataloguing the rest of his surroundings to try to block out the sounds of Lance moving around. His eyes slid over the metallic barrier walls that separated each wide stall into an open cubicle. He counted the small metallic panels that made up the opposite wall above the shower stalls and was suddenly hit with a burst of citrusy smelling steam.

Keith glanced curiously over his shoulder and watched the muscles of Lance’s back rippling as his arms lathered his favorite body wash over his chest. His eyebrows shot up and his face grew hot — warmer than from just standing in the steam — as his gaze was glued to the wet planes and curves of Lance’s back. His eyes trailed down and abruptly cut away when he caught a glimpse of the swell of Lance’s ass.

Keith swallowed twice, trying to wet his dry throat and willed his mind to focus on anything else other than the echoing mental images of Lance, naked and wet and soapy in the shower. In his mind he watched as Lance’s arm trailed lower until it would be fondling his cock, and then around to tease his fingers between his cheeks. He bit his lip as a burst of heat pulsed through him. _Oh, holy quiznak_ , he thought in a rush of panic, his eyes snapping open. He was starting to get hard.

Keith glared down at his dick and mentally demanded for it to behave. There was no way he was going to stand there, with his arm glued to Lance’s, and get excited over thoughts of _Lance_. _No fucking way_.

He avoided looking at Lance for the remainder of his shower. Keith was thankful that he didn’t luxuriate under the spray of hot water for much longer, choosing instead to make quick work of washing off his body with one hand and quickly taking care of his hair.

“Ok, all yours,” Lance said. Keith’s heart skipped a beat at his words.

Lance stepped out of the shower long enough to wrap up in a robe, and then turned away so Keith could get in the shower. Lance hummed under his breath as he used a towel to dry his hair, wrapping it around his head so that it stood upright.

Keith hesitated before stripping with agitated movements, grateful when Lance didn’t comment on the way Keith jerked their arms around. He let out a shaking exhale as he ducked under the hot spray and let out a keening sound as the water cascaded over his head and down his shoulders.

Lance had been right, even though cleaning themselves with damp towels had done its purpose, nothing beat the feeling of the steam surrounding him and the water pounding into his skin.

Keith closed his eyes tightly against the water and blindly reached for whichever soap and shampoo dispenser his hand landed on first so that he could get his shower over with quickly. He was already eager to escape from the room, his mind still trying to block out the mental image of Lance bathing himself. He shouldn’t have looked; now it was something that would be seared in his mind.

He focused his thoughts on the fight sequences again to keep himself from getting inappropriately excited and washed his body in the most utilitarian and efficient way he could manage.

“Isn’t that better?” Lance asked cheerfully as they exited the training deck facilities.

“Um, yeah…much better,” Keith croaked.

He had the urge to bury his face in Lance’s shoulder to hide it as they walked down the hall. He was glad that he could blame the flush of his skin on the steam of the shower, rather than the truth. Lance was still unaware.

“Told you,” he said. Keith glanced up and noticed how bright his blue eyes were when they were happy. His stomach did a tight somersault. “You smell so much better now.”

*******

The following night they were both still slightly crabby and cranky if they didn’t move the right way.

It wasn’t that they weren’t getting along better, because in the days since they first were stuck their petty rivalry had waned and they’d both started to build a stronger friendship.

The problem was that there was only so much they could do to not pay attention to the natural instinct to move individually; they had to constantly remind each other to consciously do everything together in synchronized movements.

They were in Lance’s bed again, trying to fall asleep after a long day. Lance knew Keith was getting frustrated with the amount of shifting he kept doing, but he couldn’t get comfortable. They were over tired from running three man sparring drills all day, but Lance’s mind wouldn’t quiet enough to relax.

“What is the matter with you?” Keith finally snapped, annoyance clear in his tone.

Lance moved restlessly again, his hips twitching against the blanket.

“Sorry…I’m just, uh, antsy. Y’know,” he said, implication heavy in his voice.

“No, I don’t _know_. All I know is that it is bed time, and you won’t settle down,” Keith said through clenched teeth.

Lance wondered if he could consider Keith enough of a friend to tell him about what his problem was. There wasn’t exactly a protocol for getting closer to someone because you had to spend every day for two weeks in their constant presence; it was different from how his other friendship relationships had progressed. If it were Hunk, it would be no problem. They were best friends, and had been through sharing a room together. Hell, he’d probably even get Hunk to agree to some kind of system that would work for both of them. He could never do the same with Keith, though.

Keith elbowed him sharply in the ribs, bringing him out of his thoughts.

“Ow. Well, I’m just on edge. I’m not used to going so long without, um, _relief_.” Lance coughed, accidentally bumping their elbows together as he fidgeted.

“Relief?” Keith pressed.

Lance let out a low, pained whine of embarrassment. It was one thing to be a big flirt, but another entirely to just talk about this so plainly. He didn’t know why he was having so much trouble with it.

“Dude, there’s no way you don’t…” he trailed off before he could actually ask Keith about his masturbatory habits. Keith made an inquisitive sound and craned his neck to look at him in the dim lighting.

“Oh my _god_! I’m horny, okay? Are you some kind of robot who doesn’t—?” _Never mind_. I usually rub one out in the shower or before bed, and I’m not used to going so long without a release,” Lance babbled in a rush of words, tumbling over his explanation. He could feel his face heating up.

Keith went very still.

“I’m nineteen, and defender of the universe or not, I’m still in he habit of jerking off as much as humanly possible,” Lance continued, feeling slightly defensive. Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut?

Keith scoffed. “Ugh, god, too much information.”

Okay, well fuck it, Lance thought before he shot back an indignant response. “Oh come on, like you weren’t doing the same thing in your little desert shack when you weren’t obsessing over conspiracy theories.”

Keith grunted, shrugging his shoulder agitatedly.

“Just go to bed,” he muttered.

Lance’s head flopped back against the pillow and he let out a gusty exhale of pent up frustration. He was worried that if he went any longer without touching himself that morning wood was going to become a huge problem.

What if he humped Keith in the middle of the night because he was dreaming? He couldn’t help it if his body associated the warm body next to him as something that meant more when he was unconscious.

Lance eventually managed to drop off into a fitful sleep, keeping more space than usual between their bodies out of fear that he would get excited in his sleep from the smallest of stimulation.

*******

They were in the showers on the training deck again.

Keith was humming contentedly as the water rushed over his face and rolled down his body. He could hear Lance whistling just outside of the cubicle and glanced over his shoulder to see him standing there without his robe or towel on. Keith spun around and focused on the taps in front of him. His hand hovered over the one he unusually went for before redirecting at the last second to the sea salt scented soap that Lance preferred.

He watched as the liquid soap pooled in his cupped hand. Lance’s whistling got closer to his ear and suddenly his hands were coming around Keith from behind him and scooping up the body wash.

“What are you doing?” Keith asked, his voice strained.

“Last I checked, you weren’t blind,” Lance murmured against his ear as his hands explored Keith’s chest in broad strokes, the frothy suds of soap filling the air with Lance’s favorite smell. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

Keith swayed on his feet , unsure what to do with his hands, and made a faint sound of pleasure in the back of his throat as Lance’s palm slid down his chest and through the trail of curls leading down from his navel. His breath stuttered out of him in staccato bursts as his fingers lazily washed the wiry patch of hair. His hand was so close to where Keith suddenly _needed_ it, but it was so sensual the way Lance was taking his time to tease him by washing all around his erection without touching it.

Lance’s lips brushed against his ear and Keith could feel his dick nudging his backside, just as hot and hard as Keith was. Lance pressed closer, his body a wall of heat at Keith’s back as he maneuvered them both under the spray. One of his hands carded through Keith’s wet hair, brushing it back so he could mouth at his neck, teeth nipping and tongue lapping up the drops of water. Keith shivered against him as his other hand finally circled around his cock, giving Keith a single teasing stroke.

He keened, leaning back further into Lance’s arms, pressing his ass back against his dick. Keith turned his head and caught Lance’s lips in a kiss, swiping his tongue inside and sliding along Lance’s.

Keith bucked his hips into Lance’s grip, and was pleased when Lance groaned into the kiss, tightening his hold on Keith’s cock. He thumbed his foreskin away from the head and slid his thumb through the slit to collect a bead of pre-come leaking out. Keith watched with wide eyes as Lance released him and brought his thumb up to lick his thumb clean.

“Lance,” Keith whimpered.

“What do you need?”

“Lance, please.” Keith let out a loud, undignified moan when Lance brought his hand back down and wrapped around his cock again, stroking him in earnest. “Yes! Oh, god.”

“You make such pretty sounds for me,” Lance whispered into his ear.

He traced the edge of it with his tongue and sucked on it, making Keith’s knees go weak and wobbly. Lance wrapped his other arm around his chest to hold him steady while he jerked him off. His fingers circled Keith’s nipples and pinched them gently. Keith whined and arched against him, his cock throbbing with pleasure. His hands scrabbled for anything to grip onto, holding on to Lance’s arm and reaching back to dig into the meat of Lance’s thigh.

“Fuck!” Keith’s brain felt like it was short-circuiting. A small part of his mind was pointing out that this was _Lance_ and that he was _touching him_ , but he quickly shoved it aside in favor of the arousal coiling tighter in his gut. He cried out when Lance twisted his wrist, changing his strokes to make Keith see stars. “Lance!”

He was so close, he wasn’t going to last much longer. Lance’s thumb came up to swipe across the crown of his cock again, his fingers teasing his sensitive foreskin, and his other hand drifted down to massage his balls. He could feel the beginnings of his release starting in the base of his spine, tingling through his body to his nerve endings as he waited on the precipice of orgasm. He just needed a little more.

“Keith,” Lance crooned against his jaw as his hand sped up, squeezing him.

”...eith. Keith!”

Someone was shaking his shoulder and when his eyes snapped open and darted around in the dim night cycle lighting he was disoriented. And he was still _hard_. He’d been so close. He let out a quiet whimper and looked around to meet Lance’s eyes in the dark.

“Keith?”

“Yeah? Why…why did you wake me up?” he asked, glad for the darkness to hide his expression. He was sure he looked like a complete mess of arousal.

“You were having a nightmare, I think,” Lance said quietly. His voice was laced with concern; it made Keith’s heartbeat stutter. “You were all groaning and twitching. Was it a battle with the Galra?”

“Uh, no. I mean, I don’t remember,” he said in a strained voice, trying hard to ignore his erection, straining and heavy against his thigh. The whole bed smelled like Lance, and it was messing with his head.

At least he was facing mostly away from Lance, so he wouldn’t know what the problem really was. That would be incredibly awkward and uncomfortable, and not just because he was embarrassed and the object of his subconscious’ desire was glued to him.

He ran a hand over his face to mask his grunt of frustration. He couldn’t believe Lance woke him up when he was moments from coming. At that thought Keith’s eyes snapped back open and the reality of what he’d been dreaming about crashed into him. _I was having a sex dream about Lance. Fuck._

He shifted restlessly against the pillow, trying to ignore the way his dick pressed against the track bottoms. He still felled keyed up from the dream. There was no way for him to discreetly jerk off, and he was absolutely not doing that while attached to Lance. Keith sighed.

“Let’s go back to bed,” he said, closing his eyes again. He hoped he wouldn’t fall right back into his dream of their shared shower.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t need to like… talk out your dreams or whatever?” Lance asked, leaning over him.

Keith batted impatiently at him with his free hand. “Go to sleep, Lance.”

“Okay, dude, chill out. My younger sister always needs to talk for a while after she wakes up from a nightmare,” he explained as he shifted behind him. “I’m here for you, if you need me. No questions asked.”

Keith stiffened slightly when Lance brought their connected arms around his waist. It was the same position they had been sleeping in from the start, but now he was aware of every part where their bodies touched. Lance was completely oblivious to his inner suffering as he got comfortable, his foot brushing along the back of Keith’s calf and his arm bumping up against Keith’s. When Lance sighed contentedly, his warm breath ghosted across the back of his neck, making him shiver.

Keith bit his lip and closed his eyes tightly. He could still vividly feel the wet slide of Lance’s body against his backside and his hands on his skin. He took several breaths, inhaling slowly through his nose and letting them out steadily.

Lance was snoring peacefully long before Keith was able to relax enough to find sleep again. He hoped he wouldn’t be so unlucky to dream about something so inappropriate again, and worried even more about whether the rest of his team — especially Lance — would know about his dream across the mental bond they all shared when they formed Voltron.

*******

“My neck has been cramping from laying on the same side all week,” Keith complained as they got ready for bed a couple of days later.

They’d noticed that morning that their skin finally started to separate enough that they could tell the difference. Shiro was pleased that they would be able to get back to normal soon. They only had to get through the rest of the second week.

“Okay, so we’ll see if we can sleep in the other direction. Put your arm under my neck,” Lance offered as they climbed into bed.

He helped Keith maneuver into a comfortable sleeping position for both of them and gently settled his head over Keith’s arm. He had to twist his wrist slightly to keep their skin from pulling, but it was mostly comfortable. He could feel the muscle definition of Keith’s arm against his neck; his skin was softer than he expected.

“Jeez, you’re so cold. Are you sure you’re not some kind of vampire?” Lance teased to break the tension of the change in status quo from how they’d gotten used to sleeping. “You aren’t going to bite me after I’m asleep, are you?”

“Shut up,” Keith said with no heat to his voice.

“Is this more comfortable for your neck?” Lance asked.

“Mm,” Keith hummed in assent and they both drifted to sleep.

Lance woke up with Keith spooning him like he was a stuffed prize from the state fair, his arms and legs wrapped around him as he clung to Lance in his sleep. But that wasn’t a problem.

The problem was that Lance had a morning boner.

He shifted and hissed out a breath through his teeth, feeling his dick throbbing for attention. It felt like he’d neglected it for so long, even though in reality it was only several days. His brain unhelpfully reminded him that with Keith spooned so snugly against him, it would be so easy to just push _back_ against his dick. Lance told his brain to fuck off.

He froze when Keith started to stir behind him. _Shit_.

He needed to stall Keith from getting up so he could will his boner to go away. He concentrated on anything unappealing to get his body to behave as Keith woke up.

“Morning,” Keith greeted quietly. Lance hummed in response, trying not to think about the way Keith’s fingers were absently ghosting across his skin. “We should get up.”

“Five more minutes,” Lance pleaded.

“You’re so lazy,” Keith complained without malice. If anything, he sounded amused.

Keith’s free hand was resting on his hip, dangerously close to where his track bottoms were riding low. Keith didn’t even mention how he’d been tangled up with Lance when he woke up, like he wasn’t even really aware he’d done it.

“Beauty rest is not laziness,” he countered.

Lance only managed to get his erection to go half down while Keith was being distracting and _breathing_ on the back of his neck.

“Okay, five minutes are definitely up by now,” Keith said after only two minutes. Lance groaned as Keith started to drag him from the bed. “If you don’t get up right now, I’m going to throw you over my shoulder.”

“Pfft, I’d like to see you try that someday. I’m like half a head taller than you and all legs, there’s no way you could pick me up.” Lance was chuckling as he gave in and got up, praying that his erection had gone away enough that it wouldn’t be obvious, outlined by the loose track pants.

“Don’t flatter yourself, you’re barely taller than me,” Keith shot back, flashing him a devious grin.

He suddenly darted forward and picked Lance up easily, despite the awkward angle it put their arms at.

Lance squawked and panicked — he was still a little hard. He flailed and squirmed, trying to keep his groin from touching Keith. “Okay, okay, you win! Come on, bro! Put me down!”

Keith snorted with laughter as he let Lance topple out of his hold, quickly swooping down to avoid a vicious tug to where their wrists were still firmly joined. They had more movement of their arms with their forearms being free of the effects of the naklyte oil, but they still needed to be conscious of where they were connected.

Keith joking around with him was becoming more of a common occurrence the longer they shared Lance’s room.

He was pleasantly surprised that Keith had a humorous side to him, that he was actually able to let go. Lance felt a stronger bond forming between them each time Keith instigated something like that. He squinted up at him from a heap on the floor with mock indignation.

“I’ll get you back for that,” he promised.

Keith’s eyes flashed with the challenge, and it was different from how competition had been between them before. “I’ll be waiting.”

Lance even felt comfortable enough with him to try to convince Keith to at least use some lotion on his face, and maybe consider exfoliating. He had held up a questionable looking sponge Lance found on one of the planets they’d been to and wiggled it enticingly. Keith had given him a deadpan stare and told him to fuck off, but his voice was all wrong for the sentiment. It was fond and warm.

They even managed to start working better together once they began to get along as the first week had bled into the second. The team was lucky they’d still avoided any Galra patrol fleets, because they still couldn’t form Voltron while Lance and Keith were attached, but if they did get spotted, Lance was more confident that they would be able to work something out to fight together against any attacks.

Shiro commended them on their improved teamwork when they started to easily beat the training simulators Pidge created, blending their strategies together to defeat the objectives.

“Maybe getting exposed to the naklyte oil was a blessing in disguise,” Shiro commented after the end of the training session.

Lance and Keith laughed it off, because it was still a major inconvenience they were dealing with. Especially for Lance, now that he was starting to develop feelings for Keith.

He had noticed by the end of the first week how cute he actually was, and how well they worked together after they set aside the bickering and friendly competition. It wasn’t like Keith was some sudden knockout, or had turned hot overnight to him, but more that — once Lance started to peel back the sharp outer layers — he could see the real person Keith was hiding. And he _liked_ him.

Lance was worried that his newly realized crush might become a problem once they were separated, but he reasoned with himself that it was just because he was so lonely. That, and it was really nice to be able to share his bed with another warm body — especially since Keith smelled so good and absently stroked Lance’s arm when he was spooned behind him, zoning out before they fell asleep.

There were other instances, too. Lance noticed the dimple in Keith’s cheek when he smiled, laughing around a spoonful of goo over something Pidge had said. There was the way his nose twitched in his sleep, or how his dark hair fell across his eyes, and the way he felt pressed against Lance’s side when they walked around the ship. It was a multitude of little things that were adding up each day.

 _Oh god_ , he thought. He was actually really fucked for when they separated. He was more than sure that Keith was eager to get away from him, and he was only just now realizing that his crush was actually a little more serious than he previously thought.

He might actually really, truly like Keith. _Like him_ , like him. _Oh god_.

Lance had no idea how his heart would fare once they were parted, but thankfully Keith didn’t say anything when Lance clung a little tighter to him as they went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos + comments are ♥ | Come say hi on [tumblr](http://starboysinspace.tumblr.com)!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, the final chapter! This one is all from Keith's POV. Thanks so much for all of the lovely comments on this!

On the last night of their topical cream treatment, they were both quieter than usual. Lance took his time spreading the ointment into their skin, even though it was only a slight patch that was still connected. They were nearly free of each other.

Keith was lost in his own thoughts. He didn’t understand what he was feeling. It was all very confusing, and he didn’t get why Lance was acting weird, too. He watched Lance’s concentrated expression as he meticulously smeared the cream onto their skin, even on the parts where they’d already been separated. His brows were drawn together in a tight furrow. His touch lingered on Keith’s wrist for a few heartbeats before his hand finally dropped away.

Lance cleared his throat and rinsed his hand off. He closed the tin and placed it off to the side of the counter. He had been quiet and drawn into himself as the end of their space-induced bonding situation came to a close.

Lance’s strange mood from the past couple of days was putting Keith on edge, and it made him miss Lance’s usual boisterous personality.

Neither of them said anything when Lance pulled Keith close against his chest after they climbed into bed. Lance wrapped his arms around him snugly. Keith’s stomach swooped pleasantly every time he held him like that.

“Gotta get in all of the cuddling I can before I lose my built in body pillow,” Lance mumbled.

Coran had assured them earlier during the day cycle that their skin would be fully separated by morning. Keith was both welcoming and dreading that moment at the same time. 

Lance shifted and squeezed him even tighter. Keith swore that for a second he felt the lightest pressure of lips against the back of his head, but he told himself he had to be imagining it. He fell asleep thinking about how comfortable it was to lay in Lance’s arms compared to when they first started, and how funny it was that only a couple of weeks could change things so much.

When Keith woke up, they were separated.

He sat up slowly and stared down at his arm, fully his own again, resting in his lap. It was somehow strange for it to not be joined to Lance’s any longer. They had even shifted further away from each other in the night. Lance was turned away from him and Keith’s heart twinged in his chest.

Lance stirred shortly after Keith woke up, stretching and blinked his blue eyes open. He scratched absently at his chest, still bare because he refused to sleep in the wrap shirts at night like Keith did. Keith’s eyes skittered away from him, looking back to his arm. His skin was pristine, as if it had never been exposed to the naklyte oil in the first place. He even still had the small scar on his wrist from when he’d lost his footing rock climbing in the desert, back when he had been looking for the cave where they’d found Blue.

Lance was squinting at him and then paled, his eyebrows shooting up and his eyes going wide with awareness. He struggled to sit up, getting stuck in the blanket twisted around his midsection. When he was upright he held his hand up in front of his face, turning his arm back and forth to examine it.

Keith didn’t know how to deal with it, but it suddenly felt like there was a chasm between them without their arms holding them together.

“So I guess now I don’t have to deal with you hogging the covers or kicking me in my sleep anymore, huh?” Lance joked weakly.

Keith looked away, curling in on himself and restraining the desire to reach out to Lance. If that was how Lance really thought of him, then their shaky friendship might suffer without them being forced to be together.

Lance leapt up from the bed suddenly, tripping over the sheet as he sprung up. He made a show of goofing off and running the length of his quarters, waving his arm around. He ducked into the bathroom and closed the door between them.

“Hah! I’m over here and _you’re_ over there! Sweet freedom!” he shouted to Keith through the bathroom door. He opened it again and poked his head out, grinning brightly.

Keith tried to smile with him and ignored the way those words made his heart heavy in a way he couldn’t quite decipher. Logically, he knew he should be happy to be free of Lance, but he couldn’t shake feeling like he already missed being attached.

“Yeah, uh. I can wear my own clothes again,” Keith pointed out.

“I don’t know, I kinda liked the wrap shirt Hunk came up with. I think I’m going to keep it in rotation,” Lance said with a waggle of his eyebrows while he made a show of flexing his bare arms. “It shows off all of my assets.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but couldn’t keep his lips from twitching into a smile.

They walked to the med bay without needing to move around with Lance’s arm around Keith’s shoulder. It had been annoying to get used to walking in sync with another person, yet now that he’d lost it, all Keith wanted was to tuck himself back against Lance’s side. He was distinctly aware of the chill along his side; he missed Lance’s body heat curling around him.

“Good morning, Paladins,” Coran greeted cheerfully when they entered.

He herded them to the table at the center of the room and tested them both for residual traces of the alien substance they had come into contact with. He examined both of their arms with Altean tech. Lance returned the tin of cream Coran had given them.

“Good as new, just like I said,” Coran proclaimed with a pleased smile. “You both have a clean bill of health and should be able to resume your normal schedules. I’ll inform Princess Allura at once.”

On their way out they both paused awkwardly at the door, unsure of what to do without having to go somewhere together.

“Breakfast?” Lance suggested with a jab of his thumb in one direction down the corridor.

Keith opened his mouth to answer and felt overwhelmed by Lance’s friendly, open smile. He had the sudden, belated urge to move around freely.

“I’ll eat later. I’m going to go train. I’ve been slacking off and I need to get back on my game,” he said, declining Lance’s offer. “See you later.”

Keith spun on his heel and hurried off in the opposite direction towards the training room.

An hour later he was starting to feel slightly better, covered in a sheen of sweat as he sparred with the gladiator droids. Even though it felt good to be himself again, he still couldn’t put his thumb on what felt off; he didn’t move to his normal level of skill and fluidity, but it was something more than that.

He reasoned with himself that it was just going to take some time to forget being stuck to Lance and get back to normal.

Keith threw himself back into the fray, dodging and throwing strategic punches, and blocking the blows from the gladiator until his mind was cleared of his worries and all he could focus on was fight sequences.

*******

Keith really didn’t know how to deal with how his feelings had changed, so he avoided Lance for a couple of days. He noticed that Lance was keeping his distance from him, too, so it made it easier for Keith to keep to himself.

The only problem with his plan was that the rest of the team noticed.

They kept shooting both of them worried glances when they thought Keith wouldn’t notice. It was putting stress on the team as a whole; there was a fissure of tension that was heavy over all of their heads whenever they were all in the same space at one time. Lance easily fit back into the team, but anytime they were paired together they both struggled.

Shiro pulled Keith aside to check in with him after a bad training exercise where Keith was clearly out of sync. Lance hadn’t fared much better.

“I thought you two were getting along better? It seemed like you were doing really well over the last couple of weeks.”

Keith avoided Shiro’s disappointed frown. He hated letting him down. He shrugged in agitation, using the back of his hand to wipe sweat from the side of his face. “Well, we had to get along. We were forced to be around each other all day, every day.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Shiro pressed in a worried tone.

“I’m _fine_ , Shiro,” Keith practically growled. He stiffened and dropped his gaze to the floor.

Shiro waited a beat before speaking again. “Alright, I just wanted to make sure. I’m here if you want to talk about anything.”

Keith brushed Shiro off and went to hide himself on one of the observation decks by himself.

He sank onto the bench, tucking his legs against his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees tightly. He let out a ragged sigh and tilted his head back to watch the star systems as the ship flew by. It was different than looking at the stars from the desert at night, but it helped to calm his racing heartbeat and soothed the thrumming urge to punch the nearest wall in frustration. He didn’t even know _why_ he was feeling so off. Or why Lance hadn’t gotten a reprimand, too.

Keith jumped when the door chimed and opened. Allura entered.

“Oh, hello, Keith,” she greeted serenely.

“Hey.”

“You’re in here all by yourself,” she pointed out, as if he wasn’t aware.

“Yeah,” he grunted.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“Uh…sure, I guess,” he conceded.

She sat at the other end of the bench he was curled up on and turned her face up towards the stars. It was a quiet and peaceful silence for several minutes, until she spoke again. “I like to come to the observation deck when I need to clear my head, too.”

Keith felt a wave of guilt for being so standoffish with her.

“Oh,” he said softly. “So are you here for that now?”

“I was, but not anymore,” she replied. The distant light of the stars reflected off her gleaming eyes when she turned to glance at him.

“What did you want to forget?” Keith asked curiously.

“It’s more what I wanted to remember. Sometimes looking at the stars around us helps me feel closer to Altea, even though it’s long gone. It helps me remember that what we are doing has a greater purpose,” she explained softly.

Keith let his legs drop to the floor from where they were tucked against his chest. Allura stood in a fluid motion and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I hope the time you spend with the stars helps you sort through your thoughts, too.”

“Thanks,” Keith said.

When he finally left the observation deck, he felt slightly better, if still confused about how to handle that his problem boiled down to the fact that he missed Lance’s presences at his side — missed the friendship they had been building.

*******

Lance seemed to be acting strange, but still trying to be his normal self. Keith watched him out of the corner of his eye each time he made a pun or told a joke to Hunk. He’d stopped avoiding him after a few days, so Keith took it as progress that they were slowly getting past the Thalgor incident.

He wanted to join in the laughter with the rest of the team, but something held him back. He tried to ignore the bitter twinge of jealousy that surged through him each time Lance was free with one of his hugs. A selfish part of him, one that he pushed deep down, wanted all of Lance’s affections to be his and his alone. Seeing Lance leaning against Hunk’s side or wrapping his arms playfully around Pidge only solidified the burning knowledge that those touches had meant nothing when they were joined at the arm — not in the way Keith wanted them to mean something.

Training finally started to get better again once Keith figured out how to compartmentalize his confusing thoughts every time Lance was near. He buried them; kept them locked away.

After one successful session several days after Lance and Keith had gone their separate ways, Hunk dragged them all to the kitchen brimming with excitement. “You guys _have_ to try this new creation I’ve been working on with the goo. I swear, I’ve gotten it to taste like fruit!”

Hunk bustled around the kitchen, nudging each of them out of the way when they crowded around.

Keith ended up sitting on the counter with Lance standing close by his side. It was the closest he’d sat willingly outside of their Paladin duties. He could feel Lance’s body heat prickling his senses, each of them awake and very aware of how much distance there was between them at that moment. He clamped down on the nervous excitement jittering through him and twisted his fingers together in his lap. 

“Hunk, my man, this better be worth it,” Lance teased good-naturedly. “If this is anything like the last goo experiment you came up with, then I’m going to demand you make me breakfast in bed for a whole week.”

“I swear, it really does taste like fruit this time! I figured out a new way to season it, _and_ I was able to rebuild the goo dispenser so that it will distribute through different flavor profiles,” Hunk promised. He thumped a fist against his chest. “I am a genius, and when you cry because I give you a bowl of pineapple flavored goo, I expect a back rub.”

“Yeah, okay, sure, buddy,” Lance goaded with a wide grin.

Hunk dropped a bowl in front of him and waited with a smug expression.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I have to go first?” Lance asked absently as he examined the goo concoction.

“Just try it, Lance, I’m sure it’s not worse than regular goo,” Shiro said. He had his arms crossed and was leaning his hip against the counter.

Lance gave a long-suffering sigh and made a show of scooping a small spoonful up. He hesitated, letting it hover in the air before he took a bite. Keith elbowed him in the side.

“What, are you scared?” Keith muttered so that the others wouldn’t hear him. He smirked when Lance stuck his tongue out at him.

“I’ll show you scared, Mullet.” Lance puffed out his chest and popped the spoon in his mouth with an air of bravado, turning towards Keith and dragging it slowly between his lips. His tongue darted out to lick up any lingering goo.

Keith suddenly found the room much too warm and was struggling to breath properly. He clenched his hands together in his lap and watched as Lance’s eyes lit up with mirth. He scooped up a second bite and repeated the same sensual display, groaning in exaggerated pleasure around the utensil.

Keith’s eyes were wide and there was a rushing sound in his ears. He glanced at the others and noticed Pidge cackling against Hunk’s side.

“Is it really that good, or are you just trying to get the rest of us to fall for it?” Pidge asked through her laughter.

Lance paused to lick his lips, smacking them at the flavor. He spun around towards Hunk.

“Whoa, okay, I was just trying to rile Keith up with all that, but it _does_ actually taste kind of like pineapple! Way to go, bro!” He high-fived Hunk and tore into his bowl of goo with renewed gusto.

No one noticed Keith slowly losing his mind on the counter, hiding his face behind his fringe and shifting uncomfortably.

Hunk dished out bowls for the rest of them and they enjoyed the treat as a team. Keith perked up when he discovered that the goo really did have a distinct, fruity flavor to it — a marked improvement from the first taste of goo they’d gotten.

“This is great, Hunk,” Keith praised through a mouthful. “Thank you.”

“No problem. My next project is to make it taste savory. Think bacon flavored goo,” Hunk said enticingly, his eyes going soft at the prospect of experimenting with his cooking. “If only I could figure out how to get it into more solid forms…crispy bacon flavored solid goo? Maybe I could make them into gelatinous cubes, like the scaultrite cookie experiment. Only…not as hard as the scaultrite cookies.”

“Can I make a request for chocolate ice cream flavored goo?” Pidge piped up, waving her spoon in the air.

“Well, if we can find a planet that has something similar to a cocoa bean I might be able to figure it out,” Hunk said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Any other requests?”

“Spicy! Spicy goo!” Lance cheered, thrusting a fist into the air and dancing around the room with his second bowl of fruit goo. Shiro laughed at his antics and reached out to ruffle his hair when he spun by.

*******

Before Keith and Lance had accidentally fused together, he’d been used to sleeping light so that he would always be prepared in case the alarm sounded on the castle ship. The reality of it was that he didn’t sleep well, a habit he had picked up once he dropped out of the Garrison and started living out in the desert.

After getting used to actually sleeping with Lance, his entire sleep schedule was thrown off. It turned out that after actually getting some decent sleep, it was hard to function on only a few hours of sleep each night once his body was readjusted to actually getting rest.

Every time he tried to go to sleep he felt so empty and lonely in his own bed. He ended up staying up most nights, managing to doze for short bursts of time to keep his body running. He knew he couldn’t keep it up forever; eventually his body would give out from exhaustion, it was only a matter of time. He was having so much trouble sleeping without sharing his bed with another warm body.

He kept telling himself that he would get used to being alone again. It would just take more than a week to get there. He swore to himself it would get easier with time, but his heart wasn’t in it — his self-assurances just fell flat.

Keith was wandering the corridors when he ran into Lance. He was surprised to find him up so late.

“Hey,” he said as he walked closer.

“Oh, hey. You’re up late,” Lance said. They were heading in the direction of the kitchen. “I couldn’t sleep. I figured I’d get something to drink.”

“Uh, yeah. Me, too,” Keith offered.

They filled glasses of water in silence and by unspoken agreement fixed a bowl of fruit goo to share. Lance fished out two spoons for them and sat the bowl between them. They ate in relatively comfortable, if slightly tense, silence through half of the bowl.

“You look shittier than usual,” Lance commented, finally breaking the silence.

Keith bristled, immediately making to shove his chair away from the counter to storm off. Lance’s hand came down and clamped on his arm to keep him there.

“Whoa, not what I meant,” Lance backtracked to explain. “I just mean that you don’t normally look so tired.”

“Oh.” Keith sighed and relaxed back into his chair. He rubbed his eyes. They burned from lack of rest. “I… Before our predicament from Thalgor, I was fine with only four or five hours of sleep each night, but after getting used to sharing with you I’ve been having trouble sleeping at all. It’s messing with me.”

“That sucks. Why don’t you…I mean we could…Uh, what I’m trying to say is, you’re welcome to share a room with me again,” Lance stammered, looking flushed and less confident than he usually did. “It’s been kinda weird and, um, lonely without you there,” he added quietly. “I guess I got used to sharing with you, too.”

Keith’s breath caught in his throat, his words sticking. He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. “I—Yeah. I would really like that. Thanks, man.”

Lance smiled and shuffled closer, slinging an arm over his shoulders. “No problem. C’mon, let’s go back to bed. Shiro will get pissed if we’re both off our game tomorrow from a lack of sleep.”

They cleaned their dishes and went back to Lance’s room.

At first, Keith moved stiff and awkwardly, just like he had when they were first fused together. It felt different, somehow, without the need to actually be in the same space together.

Lance flicked his ear when he came out of the bathroom.

“What is your deal, dude? It’s not like this is anything new,” he teased.

Keith shrugged and then yelped when Lance tackled him to the bed in a big bear hug. Keith snuggled into it with only a second of hesitation, burying his face in Lance’s chest. He was flooded with an overwhelming sense of rightness and relief and his world stopped feeling so off kilter. He was grateful when Lance didn’t comment on the small sound he made, pressing his face into Lance’s shirt and breathing him in.

Keith fell asleep quickly, surrounded by Lance’s scent and tucked securely in his arms.

*******

They managed to get through another two weeks of sharing a bed after falling into a routine again. Neither of them pointed it out that he pretty much spent all of his free time with Lance, like a switch had flipped. Keith essentially moved into Lance’s quarters with a minimum of fuss from Lance.

And it was great, it was. He felt so much better than the torturous week after their skin was no longer fused together.

But now Keith had a new problem.

The dreams had returned. When he was on his own, he was too tired to fall into a deep enough sleep, but now that he was back in Lance’s arms every night, he was plagued by confusing dreams, just like the one of them in the shower together. He had woken up with a hard-on twice, and had to quickly dive into the bathroom to avoid Lance knowing.

When he didn’t wake up with morning wood, he pretended to be asleep longer, keeping as still as he could and looking at Lance’s face at his leisure. As gently as he could manage, he lightly brushed his short fringe aside and traced the light dusting of freckles Lance had on his shoulders — probably from too many summer days spent in the sunshine, Keith guessed.

Keith held his breath and leaned forward to lightly brush his lips against Lance’s cheek, just the barest hint of a kiss. He was sure it was all he would ever get the chance to have with him, and that thought made his heart ache.

He tried to squash it down and held Lance a little closer. Lance’s arms wrapped around him, even in sleep, and rubbed his back.

Lance, on the other hand, seemed to be completely oblivious to his problem. He had no qualms with the way they woke tangled in bed, usually being the one to instigate their cuddling. He helped Keith get to sleep by running his fingers through Keith’s hair until he melted against Lance and drifted off. He was hanging off of Keith more and more whenever he was around after Keith moved in with him. He always sat next to him, or volunteered to partner with him in training, leaning close and whispering jokes in his ear that made him smile. Lance held his hand when they walked to breakfast, and on the way back from the common area at the start of the sleep cycle.

He seemed to be even flirtier than usual, and Keith didn’t quite know what to do with that.

Keith was indulging himself in their shower pod at the beginning of the third week, lathering himself in Lance’s sea scented soap and groaning when he took himself in hand, slowly working himself to full hardness.

It was easy to lose a sense of time in space, and the days were beginning to bleed together. The only thing that punctuated their “week” cycles were their run ins with the Galra. They’d dealt with one such incident in the early hours of the day cycle and Keith was aching all over.

Usually he was quick and efficient when he jerked off, especially after he started sharing his space with Lance, but he felt like taking his time for once.

He stroked his dick with long, slow pulls of his fist and lightly caressed his skin with his other hand, closing his eyes and picturing that his hands were someone else’s. Keith bit his lip as he reached down to massage his balls. He rocked his hips slowly into the circle of his fist, fucking his hand lazily as the hot water soothed his tired muscles.

Keith let out a quiet groan of satisfaction as he teased the sensitive crown, sliding his thumb through the slit to spread the slick beads of pre-come over the head of his cock.

“Hah…” Keith jerked his erection with firmer pulls, his breath catching as he teased himself.

He closed his eyes again and thought of all of his dreams of Lance, picking out his favorite parts of each and let his imagination wander in vivid detail behind his closed eyelids.

“Mm,” he hummed as he ground himself against his splayed palm, picturing rubbing himself against Lance’s body.

Keith didn’t hear the bathroom door opening, but Lance’s voice was startlingly loud when he spoke. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind, dude. I just wanted to take care of my face. You were taking longer than usual in here.”

“Uh—I mean…” Keith’s voice was strained and pitched higher than usual. His heart plummeted and he reached a hand out against the wall to steady himself from slipping and falling.

He absolutely did not squeak. Nope. Definitely not.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, trying to ignore the way his erection throbbed insistently at Lance’s proximity. “Whatever,” he called out.

“I’d actually gotten used to not having to share my bathroom for once, but now that you’ve been here for a while I’ll have to get used to it again,” Lance babbled on. Keith could hear him moving his lotions and skin creams. “I mean, I’ve always had to share with my siblings and at the Garrison, so it’s not a big deal. If you’re going to start taking longer showers, maybe we should work out a schedule or system to preserve our hot water.”

Lance’s suggestion made Keith’s mind kick into overdrive, supplying him with mental images of Lance opening the shower pod door and climbing in with him, robe and all. The water would soak the flimsy material, make it stick to Lance’s body obscenely. He bit his bottom lip hard to keep himself quiet, and gave into the urge to stroke his cock with two quick pulls. Keith breathed out hard through his nose.

“Or we could alternate morning and evening showers, maybe,” Lance continued.

It sounded like he was ambling back and forth, his voice carrying as he wandered around the small room while he went through his nightly skincare routine.

“I won’t be much longer,” Keith promised, voice steadier.

“Man, I am so tired after that fight today. I’m glad we whooped the Galras’ butts, but it is _rough_ going back to war after getting almost a month off from dealing with them, huh?” Lance sounded closer, and Keith was suddenly very grateful that the pod doors were not see through. Lance groaned, filling Keith’s head with inappropriate, delicious mental images. When he spoke again his voice was rough and deep, and it sent a lick of heat straight to Keith’s cock. “Mm, I am ready to go to bed.”

Lance kept talking and Keith gave in, unable to fight the urge any longer. Lance was _right there_ and Keith had his hard dick in his hand. He gave it a squeeze.

“Me too,” he answered breathily.

“Don’t take too much longer, _cariño_ . I’m going to go lay down. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Lance left and Keith leaned back against the wall.

He stroked his dick faster, thumb swiping over the head on every third stroke, and twisted his wrist. Lance’s voice was still wrapped around him, and he closed his eyes and pictured Lance whispering in his ear, breath hot against his neck. He licked his lips and tilted his head back against the wall. Heat was pooling in his gut, making his toes curl. It had been too long since he had last let himself go and masturbated with such abandon.

Keith worked his fist furiously until it was too much; he bit into his fist and came with a silent cry, painting the shower floor with pearly stripes of come.

Keith panted and watched as the spray swirled his release away into the drain. He stayed in the shower until he caught his breath, rinsing off before getting out. He was suddenly dreading getting into bed with Lance, feeling guilty about jerking off to thoughts of him in the shower.

Keith ran a hand over his face and stared at himself in the mirror. This was getting out of hand; he didn’t know how much longer he could stand it.

If he wasn’t careful, he was going to ruin their friendship.

*******

Keith’s guilt was eating him up inside. Lance hadn’t picked up on any changes in his mood, but Keith made a point of putting a little bit of distance between them whenever Lance got too close. Lance was too free with his affections, and it was starting to go to Keith’s head. He’d been desperate for them before, but now that he had them they were really messing with his head.

He would have to tell him soon, otherwise he would just fall harder for Lance and would end up getting rejected.

“Earth to Keith,” Lance said, bumping their hips together. Keith looked up, brought out of his maudlin thoughts. They were walking through the halls together. “Where do you go, space cadet?”

“Sorry, I was just thinking,” Keith muttered.

Lance reached out and threaded their fingers together. His hands were always so warm. He brought their hands up and kissed the back of Keith’s hand with a cheesy, over dramatic wink that he probably thought was dashing. Keith smiled shyly, despite the antics.

“Get out of your head,” Lance chided. “Next time I’ll have to resort to other ways to get your attention. Hmmm.”

Lance made a show of pondering, tapping his finger against his lips and arranging his expression into an overly serious, thoughtful one. He held up his finger and grinned deviously.

“I know! I bet a lap dance would work,” he declared triumphantly with a wicked glint to his blue eyes.

Keith tripped over his own feet, lacking all of his usual coordination and grace, and jerked to a stop with wide eyes. “W-what?”

Lance snorted and came closer to drape his arm over Keith’s shoulders. “The question is: are you a leg man or an ass man? I’ll admit, I don’t have as cute of a butt as you do, but I totally win in the leg department. I bet I could blow your mind with my dance moves.”

Keith let out a wheezing, breathy whimper, unsure of what to even say to that.

“Wow, you should see your face right now. You’re as red as your lion!”

Lance slapped his shoulder playfully and spun away, back to his usual self as if he hadn’t just practically come on to Keith. He took two steadying breaths. This was it, he had to come clean then and there so that he could protect his heart from getting jerked around by how affectionate Lance could be with his friends. They were both going to end up getting hurt if he didn’t say something.

“Lance?” Keith called. He cleared his throat and tugged at his ear nervously when he turned back towards him and walked back over.

They were alone in the hall, halfway to the common area. Keith hoped no one would stumble across them in the middle of what he had to say.

“What’s up, buddy?” Lance asked.

Keith took another breath and set his jaw determinedly. “Lance…I like you.”

Lance raised an eyebrow, but showed no other reaction to his admission of his feelings. Keith went on in a sudden rush, like the floodgates had opened, so that he could confess everything to Lance.

“I don’t even know when it started, but I realized it after we got stuck together. And after we were apart I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings, so I was so worried everything would be awkward between us and mess with the team. I couldn’t sleep by myself anymore, and I missed the way you would always touch me. I’ve never really had that before, and now I can’t seem to live without it. And then you were so nice to just share your room with me, I can’t thank you enough for that.”

Lance looked like he was about to say something, but Keith cut him off and quickly went on. Lance took a step closer, his eyes flickering back and forth between Keith’s.

“But there’s something else. While we were stuck together, I started to notice how much I was attracted to you. When you thought I was having a nightmare I, uh, I wasn’t…I was dreaming about you being in the shower with me.” Keith couldn’t meet Lance’s eyes anymore; he looked down at their shoes with flushed cheeks. “And my feelings have only gotten deeper the more time we spend together. I know that you’re just really affectionate with everyone, but it’s meant so much more when you’re like that with me. I really, really like you — maybe even more, I don’t really know yet.”

Keith looked up again when he heard Lance catch his breath. He blinked away the sudden stinging wetness in his eyes, getting frustrated with himself.

“I’ve been so scared to tell you because I’ve been worried about messing up the friendship we’ve built. It’s really important to me, and I don’t want to lose you because I have feelings for you,” he finished, holding his breath at Lance’s odd expression. His throat burned with emotion.

He braced himself for Lance to tell him they couldn’t be friends anymore and to kick him out of his room. Lance’s face was flitting through several different emotions that confused Keith; he couldn’t pinpoint any of them.

“What?!” Lance finally blurted, rubbing his temple with his fingers and gestured wildly with his other hand as he continued on. “I thought…I mean, okay, well I guess I just _assumed_ , but whateve—”

“Spit it out, Lance,” Keith said quickly, wanting this to be over with already so that he could go hide himself away somewhere.

“Right. Okay, well, I kind of thought we were already unofficially dating?” Lance’s voice lilted up at the end in a questioning tone.

Keith blinked at him, astonished. “You _what_?”

Lance mumbled something in Spanish under his breath that Keith didn’t catch. He ran a hand through his short hair, scrubbing at the back of it and smiling down at the floor with a self-depreciating smile. He glanced up at Keith through his lashes and Keith realized distractedly how attractive that was.

“Well, yeah, I mean…okay, you were like, sleep humping me — which I brushed off at first — but then you started holding my hand when we walked around the ship, and you kissed my cheek one morning when you thought I was sleeping?” Lance still sounded like he was questioning everything.

Keith covered his face with his hands, mortified. Emotions were flooding his system, clashing together and vying for his attention: relief, confusion, irritation.

“Oh my god,” he mumbled into his palms. They were both idiots.

“It’s fine, I thought it was all really cute. You like me, though, right?”

“ _Yes_.” Keith felt Lance gently tugging his hands away from his face.

“Okay, cool, so…we can date?” Lance ventured with a nervous smile.

“Yes,” he answered softly.

“Awesome.”

“Just shut up and come kiss me,” Keith demanded. He couldn’t believe that this all could have been avoided; that it was all a giant misunderstanding.

“Pfft, wow. How about you come over here and kiss me? It’s your turn to be a good boyfriend, since apparently, I’m the one who has been putting all of the work into this relationship,” Lance shot back cockily.

His mouth tilted up at the corners and Keith felt a surge of want coursing through him. Lance crooked a finger at him tauntingly, gaining confidence again.

Keith was about to argue with him, distracted by the challenge, but then he caught the playful glint in Lance’s eye and smirked. He stalked closer, pushing Lance against the wall with a palm to his chest. He met Lance’s eyes and held his gaze as he leaned in slowly, tilting his head to the side as he pressed their lips together.

It was slow at first, just warm pressure and soft lips against his own chapped ones. Lance’s hands settled on his hips, his fingers teasing under the edge of Keith’s t-shirt. Keith gasped into the kiss and pressed closer, pinning Lance to the wall with more force. Their mouths opened at the same time and their tongues brushed together in a sensual slide. Keith licked into his mouth and reached up to trace his fingers along Lance’s jaw, stroking gently with the pads of his fingers. He shivered when Lance sucked on his bottom lip, mapping it with his tongue and nipping at it teasingly.

Lance deepened the kiss until Keith went a little weak in the knees, leaning heavily against him and smiling blindly into their kiss when Lance’s warm palm slid up his back, under his shirt against his bare skin.

“Oh, god, sorry!”

They both jumped and sprung apart at the sound of Shiro’s voice at the end of the hall. Lance grabbed Keith’s hand to keep him from running away and stood up straighter.

“Hey, Shiro,” Lance greeted evenly, not even apologetic about what they’d been doing.

Keith wanted to melt into the floor. He couldn’t believe they’d been caught making out. By _Shiro_ ; he was like a brother to him.

Shiro’s eyes were focused intently on the tablet in his hands. He cleared his throat and rubbed his jaw. “Um, keep it out of the common areas and hallways, guys. I’m glad you’re together and happy, but just try to keep your romantic…activities to your private quarters. Please.”

Keith’s whole face felt hot with the prickle of embarrassment. Lance was shaking with silent laughter beside him, and when he shot him a mutinous look, Lance burst out laughing.

“S-sorry, you’re both—god, your _faces_!” Lance leaned heavily against Keith’s shoulder, sneaking in a kiss against his neck while he laughed. He straightened when his amusement subsided and wrapped his arm around Keith’s waist, tugging him closer. “Yes, sir, Shiro, we will keep all physical boyfriend activities to the bedroom.”

Lance gave a mock salute and quickly steered them away in the other direction, giggling the whole way and navigating through the halls until they were outside of their shared room.

“Did you have to say that to him?” Keith asked petulantly as Lance took his hand and tugged him into the room.

Before they even made it further, Lance pushed him back against the closed door and kissed him again, effectively cutting off Keith’s thoughts about Shiro altogether. Keith wrapped his arms around Lance’s neck and walked him backwards towards the bed. They stumbled when Lance’s legs hit the edge and he tumbled back onto the mattress, pulling Keith down with him.

Keith broke away, ignoring Lance’s sound of protest, to trail kisses down his neck. Lance’s hands twisted in the fabric of his shirt and he wrapped one leg around his hip. Keith alternated between biting and sucking kisses up and down the long column of his neck, smirking at the way Lance writhed beneath him.

“Keith! Holy shit,” Lance exclaimed. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

Keith chuckled against the warm skin of his neck, fluttering gentle kisses over the blooming red marks he’d left there, claiming Lance as _his_. Lance bucked against him, managing to flip them over and rolled on top of Keith, dipping down and capturing his lips in another searing kiss. Keith’s toes curled in his boots as he surged up to meet Lance, tongues sliding together as they both struggled to remember to breathe properly.

“Oh my god—ah, yes,—all I’ve been dreaming about is touching you like this—mm—and you touching me,” Keith muttered into their kiss as his hands roamed over Lance’s body. He pulled the collar of Lance’s shirt to the side, greedy to explore more bare skin.

“Oh good, same. I’m glad I’m not the only one who has been dreaming about my hot boyfriend,” Lance mused with a breathy laugh as Keith licked a stripe across his collarbone.

Keith’s head shot up and he narrowed his eyes. “Am I going to live that down anytime soon?”

Lance shook his head, smiling unrepentantly.

“Whatever,” Keith mumbled, shoving Lance’s shoulder. “You were the one who assumed we were already dating. You could have just asked me.”

Keith tugged impatiently at his shirt and helped when Lance leaned up to pull it off, revealing his golden skin. Keith grinned, reaching out to tease his nipples with a light touch.

“Not so fast, pretty boy, now it’s your turn,” Lance said as he twisted out of Keith’s grip.

He sat up so that Keith had to straddle his lap and slowly, sensually slid his hands under Keith’s black t-shirt to strip it off of him. His hair was in his eyes and Lance brushed it away with his long fingers. His eyes were darkening with heat and arousal, his pupils blowing wide. The mood shifted in the air around them as Lance’s hands traced the plans of Keith’s back. They held their locked gaze as Keith bent his head to kiss Lance again.

Keith squirmed closer in Lance’s lap and gasped when their erections brushed together, both confined in their pants. Lance moaned into their kiss and gripped Keith’s ass in two firm handfuls, guiding him to rock against his dick. The slow drag of friction was everything, and yet still not enough all at once. Keith keened, his fingers squeezing Lance’s arms and tugging at the short hairs at the back of his neck, arching into Lance’s touch.

“Fuck,” Lance muttered against the side of his neck when they broke apart to gasp.

“More,” Keith pleaded, grinding down, seeking more friction.

“Can I take your pants off?” Lance asked, hesitating and meeting Keith’s eyes.

Keith nodded urgently, scrambling off of Lance’s lap to toe his boots off and scrabble at his jeans. He popped the button and reached over to help Lance with his fly as he kicked off his shoes.

“Whoa, okay, just slow down, Keith,” Lance said soothingly, running a hand down his arm. “No need to rush.”

“I want to touch you,” Keith whispered with a desperate edge as he shimmied out of his pants and briefs together.

Lance groaned and flopped back against the bed. “Jesus, that’s hot. You’re really hot, did you know?”

Keith laughed, kicking his legs free from his jeans and crawling over Lance. He peppered kisses up his chest to his chin and hovered just out of reach of his lips. “Take your pants off.”

“Yes, sir,” Lance said, waggling his eyebrows. They both peeled Lance’s pants off together.

Keith paused, suddenly nervous to feel all of Lance against him, with no barriers between them. His breath hitched as Lance’s arms banded around his waist and pulled them flush together, their cocks brushing together. Both of them groaned, clutching at each other. Their hips rocked together in a messy, uncoordinated rhythm, the heated and sticky slide of their dicks too much to focus on anything else for several minutes. Keith kissed Lance sloppily, sucking on his tongue as they ground their erections together.

“Wait, wait, like this,” Lance said, wriggling a hand between their bodies to wrap around both of their lengths. Keith gasped and closed his eyes and dropped his head to mouth at Lance’s neck. “’s better, right?”

Keith nodded, rolling his hips in time with Lance’s strokes. It was tight and slick with the pre-come leaking from their cocks. Keith laved his tongue over the love bites he’d already left on Lance’s neck, grazing his teeth over the sensitive skin. Lance bucked up against him with a stuttered gasp.

“Shit, Keith, if you keep that up I’m going to come,” Lance warned.

Keith teased his tongue up and down his neck, freezing and biting into the juncture where Lance’s neck met his shoulder when Lance twisted his hand on the upstroke in just the right way. He groaned and shook as his orgasm rushed through him, coming in spurts over Lance’s dick and his hand, the sticky fluid splashing onto Lance’s stomach.

“Fuck,” he breathed weakly, his limbs trembling with the aftershocks.

He was distantly aware of Lance muttering something under his breath and could feel his dick twitching against his softening cock as his own orgasm hit him. Keith slumped against him in a boneless heap, not even caring that he was smearing their mess between them. Lance’s breath left him with a pained _oomph_.

Keith’s eyelids felt heavy and sleep was dragging him down. His world was hazy with pleasure. He felt fingers carding through his hair and a lulling voice speaking to him. He struggled to stay awake, to answer Lance, but he drifted into a doze.

When he woke up he met Lance’s amused eyes. “Hi.”

“Uh, hey,” Keith greeted.

“You, like, blacked out for a second on me,” Lance teased.

Keith rolled his eyes and leaned up on his elbows. “I did not!”

He made a face as their chests and stomachs peeled apart slowly, their cooled come already drying and itchy. “Ugh, gross.”

“Yeah, well, don’t blame me. You’re the one that face planted on me and then fell asleep. I know I’m good, but I’m not _that_ good.”

Keith blushed, darting his eyes away. Lance sat up when he moved off of him and stood without a care for his flaccid dick, hands on his hips. “How about a shower? We need to get cleaned up. I want to see whether or not we really can fit together in one of the pods.”

Keith agreed and they moved into the bathroom. Lance got the water started and steered them both inside the pod. It was a tight fit, but Lance made it nicer by pulling Keith close and holding him.

“Mm, hi there,” Lance greeted fondly. “Can I wash your hair?”

“Sure,” Keith agreed. “But only if I can wash you, too.”

“Oh, buddy, you drive a mean bargain, but you’ve got yourself a deal,” Lance said in a pleased tone. “The way to my heart is through pampering.”

“Noted,” Keith murmured as he let the lemon-scented soap fill his cupped palm.

He cleaned off his stomach and Lances and then turned Lance around to explore his back. He lathered the soap in swirls and brazenly squeezed his ass. Lance leaned back eagerly into his ministrations, sighing softly and tilting his head obediently at Keith’s bidding. Keith melted when Lance returned the favor, closing his eyes and groaning appreciatively when Lance massaged shampoo into his scalp. He glanced down and saw that Lance was hard again. The head of his cock bumped against Keith’s hip when he steered him under the spray to rinse off.

Lance’s fingers traced around his nipples, tweaking them curiously and watching Keith for his reaction. He grinned and scraped his nails lightly across Keith’s stomach.

“You’ve got two moles on your belly,” he pointed out delightedly.

“Mm,” Keith hummed in agreement with his eyes closed, too busy enjoying the feeling of Lance’s nails against his skin. “That feels nice.”

Their wet skin was smooth to the touch and heightened Keith’s arousal. He hadn’t even been aware of his swelling dick until Lance’s fingers circled around it in a loose grip. His toes curled against the shower floor and he thrust into Lance’s hold, his jaw dropping open in a silent ‘o’ of pleasure.

He opened his eyes and met his hungry stare. Lance’s eyes were hooded and predatory. Keith tracked the movement as Lance licked his lips and backed him against the wall of the pod.

“You’re beautiful like this,” Lance murmured, making Keith’s skin tingle with his praise. “I can’t wait to learn all of the faces you make…memorize all of your sounds.”

While he spoke his fingers tightened on his cock, moving slow enough to keep him teetering on the edge of satisfaction and need for more. He shuffled closer and lifted one of Keith’s legs, holding his pale thigh up with one hand, and rolled his hips against him. A strangled moan tore out of Keith when their cocks slid together. Keith’s calf curled around Lance’s waist, drawing him closer as he lifted on his toes to thrust against Lance, meeting each roll of his hips. His mouth fell open in a silent gasp as they rubbed off against each other again. They were more coordinated the second time around, but it went just as quickly as they gave into the heady rush of desire and arousal.

Lance moaned and buried his face in Keith’s neck, coming first. His whole body went tense and shuddered against Keith, his hand spasming and fingers digging into the meat of his thigh for a moment. Keith’s orgasm followed seconds later when Lance squeezed his ass and pulled him tighter against his wet body, grinding his hip into his leaking cock. Keith came with a sharp cry, sagging against Lance, his hips slowing to a lazy roll as his twitching dick spurted until he was spent.

Lance snickered and smeared a hand through their mess. “Good thing we’re in the shower this time. Easier clean up.”

“Mhm,” Keith agreed groggily.

He clung to Lance as he cleaned them both off and helped Keith out of the shower. Lance took his time toweling him dry, interrupted by Keith kissing him over and over again. Lance smacked his ass playfully and turned him around towards the bedroom.

“Get in the bed—or do I have to carry you?”

“Well, we already know I can carry you,” Keith shot back as Lance rained kisses down on the back of his neck and shoulders. He leaned his head to the side to give Lance better access. His dick gave a feeble twitch of interest. “We won’t make it back to the bed if you keep that up.”

“Easy, tiger, I need my beauty rest. Let’s get some sleep.”

Keith laughed as Lance herded him into bed. They spent long minutes tangled together, kissing and whispering to each other until they both finally fell asleep.

*******

An insistent knocking sound dragged Keith from the best sleep he had gotten in weeks. He blinked his eyes open, nuzzling closer to Lance. His head shot up in alarm when the door opened and Pidge and Hunk barged in.

Lance startled awake and all four of them froze.

“Uh, hey guys,” Lance said slowly, tucking the blankets tighter around himself in the most unsubtle fashion. As if Pidge and Hunk couldn’t clearly see the way they were both obviously naked and their limbs twisted together under the sheets.

Pidge had a smug look on her face and Hunk had the grace to look embarrassed and apologetic for not waiting to be let in.

“Knew it,” Pidge announced with a smirk. Hunk laughed and started to pull Pidge away. Pidge looked over her shoulder and added, “Practice safe sex!”

Lance groaned and flung a pillow at them on their way out. Keith snorted and rolled over to kiss the wounded pout off of Lance’s face.

They ended up missing breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  _cariño_ \- term of endearment: sweetheart, darling, sunshine, honey, etc
> 
> Kudos + comments + story recs are ♥ | Come say hi on [tumblr](http://starboysinspace.tumblr.com)!


End file.
